Villa Farnesina: Renaissance Pleasure Palace

A Renaissance Pleasure Palace—Villa Farnesina

Secluded behind tall walls near the banks of the Tiber River, Villa Farnesina stands as a reminder of the opulence of a forgotten Renaissance family. The villa was built from 1506-1510 for Agostino Chigi, a wealthy Sienese banker. Chigi came from a family of well-respected businessmen in Siena, and after coming to Rome in 1487, actually became treasurer to Pope Julius II. Eventually Pope Julius bestowed on Agostino honorary membership into the Della Rovere family, a great honor and symbol of their friendship. Chigi’s wealth and influence was absolutely unrivaled in early 16th century Rome. His banking industry made him one of the richest men in Italy, and he also enjoyed close personal relations with some of the most powerful men of the city.

Agostino Chigi had a boisterous personality to match his immense wealth and power. He was known as Il Magnifico, “the magnificent.” He frequently entertained his powerful friends and business partners at dinner parties, and, as legend has it, would instruct his guests to fling their expensive silverware out the windows and into the Tiber. This was an over the top way for Agostino to display his wealth, although his servants later collected the lost silver in nets, unbeknownst to the impressed guests. Like many wealthy Romans of his day, Agostino also enjoyed flaunting his money by patronizing the arts. The villa was the ideal way for Chigi to display his power to all of Rome, and also created a space for some of the greatest artwork of the age to be commissioned and preserved.

Villa Farnesina was originally known as Chigi Villa, but was renamed in later centuries for the Farnese family who acquired it after Agostino Chigi’s death. Primarily, the villa served as a suburban pleasure palace. It was designed to be a serene refuge for its wealthy owner, an oasis in the middle of a vast metropolis. The villa’s design is significantly different from a regular urban palace. Rather than being entirely rectangular and defense-oriented, villas in Rome were open and airy spaces, often incorporating large gardens and breezy courtyards. For Agostino, the villa was an ideal place to entertain his formidable friends. It was not uncommon for the pope or various cardinals to be in attendance at his lavish parties, along with the usual crowd of high-ranking nobility and affluent leaders. Villa Farnesina also hosted major events, including Chigi’s own wedding on August 28th, 1519. In typical Chigi fashion, Pope Leo X himself officiated the ceremony.

Agostino Chigi wanted his villa to be truly magnificent, so he settled for no less than the best and most talented architects and artists to design it. Baldassarre Peruzzi was chosen to oversee the project when the land was purchased in 1505. Construction began in earnest in 1508 and the villa took over a decade to complete. Peruzzi, a student of Bramante, put his architectural genius to work when designing the villa, and worked alongside a team of impressive artists who decorated the interior with lavish frescoes. Overall, the villa is classically inspired and incorporates beautiful decorations based on pagan mythology. Interestingly, the villa originally sported colorful friezes all over its exterior which contained images from pagan myths. However, much of this artwork has been lost to time, and only fragments of scenes from Ovid’s Metamorphoses remain on the top of the villa’s exterior wall. Inside, Villa Farnesina is defined by four major rooms, each housing brilliant frescoes: the Sala di Galatea, Sala delle Prospettive, Sala di Sodoma, and the Loggia di Psyche. Throughout the villa, a central theme of an idealized mythical world remains, with different legends presented by various artists. Sebastiano del Piombo, Sodoma, and Giovanni da Udine were among the artists commissioned by Chigi to beautify the interior of the villa, along with Peruzzi himself. However, the most famous master at work on Villa Farnesina was Raphael.

Raphael was one of the most prolific artists of the Renaissance, and his frescoes at Villa Farnesina are widely considered some of his best works. Raphael’s father was also a painter, and after being orphaned at a young age Raphael became an apprentice to Pietro Perugino. His contempories Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo also influenced his work. Though many of Raphael’s famous paintings depict Christian scenes, his frescoes at the Villa Farnesina are purely secular in nature. They satisfied Agostino Chigi’s vision of a heavenly, relaxing suburban villa, meant to enchant visitors with its mythological imagery and emphasis on nature. On the ground floor of the villa, one of Raphael’s mythic masterpieces, the Triumph of Galatea, greets visitors as one of Villa Farnesina’s most fascinating works of art.

Raphael’s depiction of the Galatea myth was completed in 1512, the earliest of the villa’s main frescoes. He chose not to depict the entire pagan story, which recounts the tale of Galatea, a beautiful Nereid who falls in love with a shepherd, Acis, inciting the jealousy of the Cyclops, Polyphemus. In the Sala de Galatea, an image of Polyphemus was painted by Sebastiano del Piombo, and is positioned next to Raphael’s Galatea, so that the jilted Cyclops appears to be gazing over at Galatea. Raphael’s work focuses on one scene from Galatea’s story, her apotheosis, when she is exalted as divine. Raphael’s scene is immediately captivating: Galatea appears surrounded by sea creatures, which include nymphs and tritons. She stands exultantly on a chariot made from a shell, propelled by two dolphins. The image of the shell evokes a reference to Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, with a similarly idealized female figure as the centerpiece. Though Galatea is the centerpiece of this fresco, she does not appear alone or separated from the figures around her. She is accompanied by an entourage of subordinate figures, including typical mythological characters like sirens, cupids, and tritons. Galatea’s gaze is directed upward towards the heavens, and the busy scene around her suggests that an important transformation is taking place. Generally art historians believe Galatea to represent idealized feminine beauty, exalted somehow above the mythic world around her through divine blessing. Another fascinating facet of the Sala de Galatea is the astrological detail. By analyzing the placement of celestial figures and deities, scholars have actually been able to construct a specific date, the day of Agostino Chigi’s birth: December 1st, 1466. Perhaps, like Galatea, Agostino believed himself to be a recipient of divine blessing and wanted to extend this impression into the artwork of the villa.

Another captivating space in the Villa is the Sala delle Prospettive, or the “Hall of Perspectives.” This space was engineered by Baldassarre Peruzzi himself, who completed a series of frescoes in 1517. The Sala delle Prospettive uniquely captures the spirit of Agostino’s villa; Peruzzi covered the walls with nature scenes, and his use of perspective provides the illusion of depth, transforming solid walls and paint into windows and scenery. This harmonious room created an inviting space for guests. In fact, it was the perfect room for Agostino’s wedding banquet in 1519. Peruzzi was able to express his creativity and sense of space brilliantly in the Sala delle Prospettive, incorporating architectural illusions like columns to contrast with his artificial “outdoor” landscapes. Some of Peruzzi’s original colors were tampered with during the renovations of 1863, but have since been restored. Furthermore, maintenance done in the 1970’s revealed graffiti on some of the walls dating back to the sack of Rome in 1527. These messages left by German invaders remain visible today, reminding modern visitors that “the Lansquenets have made the pope run.” Peruzzi’s unique design is a testament to his skill and to Agostino Chigi’s personality—only the lavish Il Magnifico would commission an artist to create artificial landscapes to compensate for the lack of natural scenery.

Agostino Chigi’s bedroom, located upstairs near the Sala delle Prospettive, was designed by Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, known as Sodoma. The walls and ceiling are decorated with numerous mythological scenes, but the highlight of this space is Sodoma’s fresco, The Marriage of Alexander and Roxana, which was completed in 1517. Alexander the Great stands as the painting’s central figure, being led by several putti towards his waiting bride, Roxana. Roxana reclines on the bed as putti undress her, and off to the left, her ladies in waiting exit the room. On the right stands a nude man representing the god of marriage. Sodoma’s fresco draws the visitor’s eyes—in addition to the captivating scene between Alexander and Roxana, the intricate four-poster bed and loggia in the background showcase the artist’s attention to detail. Its subject matter, an obviously sensual nuptial encounter, is perfect for the bedroom of Agostino Chigi’s pleasure palace. The figure of Alexander the Great showcases Chigi’s own hubris—he saw himself as a conquering hero, and, like the Alexander depicted in Sodoma’s work, Chigi himself fell in love with an ultimately married a foreign woman, Francesca Andreazza, bringing her back to Villa Farnesina. Sodoma’s technique displays the amalgamation of multiple Renaissance elements; he combines pagan mythology and striking realism to create a breath-taking bedroom for Agostino and Francesca.

Without a doubt, the most famous room of Villa Farnesina is the Loggia di Psyche. Guests could enter the villa through this breathtaking loggia and enjoy the frescoes and access to the outdoor gardens. The ceiling of this large rectangular room was designed by the great master, Raphael, and is in many ways the centerpiece of Chigi’s villa. The main fresco depicts the legend of Love and Psyche, and was completed by Raphael and his students in 1518, just two years before Raphael’s death. The story comes from Apuleius’s The Golden Ass. According to the legend, Psyche was so beautiful that men venerated her more than Venus, the goddess of love. Jealous Venus tells Love, also called Cupid or Eros, to make Psyche fall in love with the most disgusting and deformed man possible. But Cupid falls in love with Psyche himself and takes her away with him, but won’t reveal his identity. Finally one night Psyche grows curious, scaring Cupid off. Venus causes Psyche to suffer through many trials, but she overcomes them all. Finally Cupid makes Jupiter promise to have Venus stop persecuting Psyche, and they can be together. Raphael did not include every scene, in fact, the fresco was originally meant to cover more of the lower walls, not just the ceiling. As a result, several of the scenes show characters pointing downward towards panels that were never painted. The two most important scenes take prominence at the center of the ceiling. Here, the viewer can observe the Council of the Gods and the Wedding Banquet, scenes which complete the saga of Cupid and Psyche. These two panels are painted to look like tapestries stretched across the blue-painted sky, further enhancing the natural feel of the loggia. In addition, all the scenes are divided by garlands bursting with fruit, painted by one of Raphael’s students. Overall, the story of Cupid and Psyche constitutes a fitting zenith of the art in Chigi’s villa. The theme of love and pleasure-seeking certainly fits into the villa’s function and the personality of its owner.

Agostino Chigi desired a pleasure palace fit for a true Renaissance man, and Villa Farnesina delivered. Every aspect of Peruzzi’s design contributes to the overall function of the villa, making it the perfect urban oasis and entertaining center for one of Rome’s most powerful men. The artwork done by Raphael, Sodoma, Peruzzi, Sebastiano del Piombo and the other artists only enforces Chigi’s overall vision: each room is succulently bedecked with frescoes bearing some relation to idealized beauty, be it the feminine form or the beauty of creation. In the Sala delle Prospettive the use of perspective creates landscapes out of bare walls, and in the Loggia di Psyche the entrance to the outdoors is merged with sprawling ceiling scenes of abundance and pleasure. For modern visitors Villa Farnesina serves as a snapshot of Renaissance Rome, providing a glimpse into the life and personality of Agostino Chigi.