DOI Kapitel:
III. Roman villas
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61216#0139
ROMAN VILLAS
space thus cleared the villa is built, some ten or fifteen
feet away from the wall, so that its ground floor is cool
and shaded without being damp. The building, which
is long and narrow, runs lengthwise into the cut, its
long fagades being treated as sides, while it presents
a narrow end as its front elevation. The propriety of
this plan will be seen when the restricted surroundings
are noted. In such a small space a larger structure
would have been disproportionate; and Ligorio hit on
the only means of giving to a house of considerable size
the appearance of a mere garden-pavilion.
Percier and Fontaine say that Ligorio built the Villa
Pia “after the manner of the ancient houses, of which
he had made a special study.” The influence of the
Roman fresco-architecture is in fact visible in this deli-
cious little building, but so freely modified by the per-
sonal taste of the architect that it has none of the rigidity
of the “reconstitution,” but seems rather the day-dream
of an artist who has saturated his mind with the past.
The fagade is a mere pretext for the display of the
most exquisite and varied stucco ornamentation, in
which motives borrowed from the Roman stucchi are
harmonized with endless versatility. In spite of the
wealth of detail, it is saved from heaviness and confu-
sion by its delicacy of treatment and by a certain naivete
which makes it more akin (fantastic as the comparison
may seem) with the stuccoed fagade of San Bernardino
at Perugia than with similar compositions of its own
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1OI
space thus cleared the villa is built, some ten or fifteen
feet away from the wall, so that its ground floor is cool
and shaded without being damp. The building, which
is long and narrow, runs lengthwise into the cut, its
long fagades being treated as sides, while it presents
a narrow end as its front elevation. The propriety of
this plan will be seen when the restricted surroundings
are noted. In such a small space a larger structure
would have been disproportionate; and Ligorio hit on
the only means of giving to a house of considerable size
the appearance of a mere garden-pavilion.
Percier and Fontaine say that Ligorio built the Villa
Pia “after the manner of the ancient houses, of which
he had made a special study.” The influence of the
Roman fresco-architecture is in fact visible in this deli-
cious little building, but so freely modified by the per-
sonal taste of the architect that it has none of the rigidity
of the “reconstitution,” but seems rather the day-dream
of an artist who has saturated his mind with the past.
The fagade is a mere pretext for the display of the
most exquisite and varied stucco ornamentation, in
which motives borrowed from the Roman stucchi are
harmonized with endless versatility. In spite of the
wealth of detail, it is saved from heaviness and confu-
sion by its delicacy of treatment and by a certain naivete
which makes it more akin (fantastic as the comparison
may seem) with the stuccoed fagade of San Bernardino
at Perugia than with similar compositions of its own
9
1OI