Villa Medici
Villa Medici—Domus Pinciana to the ancients—begins as a grand story of ownership and art. Here on the Pincian Hill next to Trinità dei Monti, the site was once part of Lucullus’s gardens, later absorbed into the imperial world, where Messalina was murdered in the villa. In the 1500s, the property became a Renaissance project. In 1564, the nephews of Cardinal Giovanni Ricci of Montepulciano acquired it, and it had long been abandoned for viticulture. They continued improvements through Annibale Lippi—called in as the son of Nanni Lippi—while the common tale also links Michelangelo to the design, though it’s not proven. The villa is a sixteenth-century Mannerist complex, paired with a 7-hectare Italian garden contiguous with the Borghese gardens. Today, it’s property of the French State and has housed the French Academy in Rome since the Rome Prize began welcoming winners here in 1803. …
AI-generated from open data and cross-checked, with review where noted. How we write narrations
🎧 Listen in WayWhisperOfficial website ↗
