Villa d’Este at Tivoli, with the palace and its gardens, is among the most important and remarkable testimonies of Renaissance culture. The architectural and decorative elements of these extraordinary gardens, including fountains, basins, grottos, boulevards and pavilions, are a unique and extraordinary example of XVI century Italian gardens. Among the first “gardens of marvel”, the gardens at Villa d’Este are a milestone in the European gardening history and their influence spread all over the world.
[expand title=”A grand project for Cardinal Ippolito d’Este’s mansion”]
In 1550 Cardinal Ippolito II d’Este, at the time the Governor of Tivoli, commissioned the construction of a princely renaissance mansion, whose garden is still considered an unsurpassed masterpiece. Villa d’Este is part of the network of lavish country mansions that, between the XVI and XVII centuries, the Roman aristocracy of cardinals and noble families built to match Papal magnificence displayed in the Villas at Frascati, Villa Farnese at Caprarola and Villa Gambara at Bagnaia. Nevertheless Villa d’Este stands out for the exceptional landscape, the role of water, its hydraulic engineering solutions and the unique features of its decorative layout involving plants and sculptures. At the feet of Monti Tiburtini, close to the village of Tivoli, the mastermind behind the architectural and iconographic project of the Villa, Pirro Ligorio, made changes to the natural landscape and the built-up area, in order to conjure that scenic effect sought by his illustrious client: the course of river Aniene was diverted and led into an underground tunnel to feed the fountains while ramps and terraces were built for prospective purposes.[/expand]
[expand title=”The Palace”]
The Villa is a XVI century architecture restored and expanded from an old convent attached to the pre-existing Palazzo del Governatore. For the internal decoration Ligorio hired several late mannerist artists admired in Roman courts and scores of skilled craftsmen including stucco workers, gilders, carpenters. The frescoes in the grand hall were painted by scholars of Girolamo Muziano and Federico Zuccari, and feature classical mythology themes about Hercules, the protector of the Este house, and Ippolito. These themes are quite recurrent in the frescoes painted in the Cardinal’s apartments, in other official rooms and in the sculptural decorations in the garden.[/expand]
[expand title=”The garden”]
The network of gardens and fountains stands out as a masterpiece of renaissance engineering and the best known prototype of Italian garden, a vague that deeply affected European and French fashion. A lot of money was spent to hire highly skilled workforce, including known artists, were employed to build the fountains; under the supervision of Ligorio the gardeners built an elaborate network of boulevards, pavilions, terraces, nymphaeums and fountains where rare and precious flower species imported from the Indies and other exotic locations blended harmoniously with the architecture and sculptures. The Este family was celebrated with mythological themes in each fountain, which form a spectacular and sublime composition. As far as technology goes the fountains at Villa d’Este are quite impressive; the incredible water play is the result of natural water pressure, while mechanical and musical effects were also introduced and after centuries they still impress, as if they were magical, the distinguished guests.[/expand]
[expand title=”The fall and the rise”]
The Park at Villa d’Este became the favourite venue of artists, intellectuals and young aristocrats on the grand tour. During the XVIII century the Villa became the property of the Habsburg family and fell into disrepair; it was not restored to its splendour before the mid XIX century, when Cardinal Gustav Adolf von Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst brought it back to life with a number of restoration and preservation measures.[/expand]