THE VILLA MON DRAGONE AND VILLA RORC1IESE, l-k .ISC 1 77. 179 



and outbuildings were due to Giovanni Fontana, and the plantation of the gardens to Carlo 

 Rainaldi (1611 1691). 



The owner was Cardinal Marco Sitico d'Altemps, nephew of Pope Pius IV. Gregorx XIII 

 enlarged it, but the completion was due to Paul V and his nephew, Cardinal Scipio Borghese. 

 One can easily realise on visiting this vast structure how so many hands came to be engaged upon 

 it and how its completion occupied so many years. Much has disappeared, the villa is now 

 occupied as a college, and quadrangle and garden court have to serve as playgrounds. The 

 avenues of orange trees, laurels and evergreen oaks that connected this villa with the Taverna 

 have been destroyed. Entering the great quadrangle, a fine loggia in two storeys, each of five 

 arches, framed by Doric and Ionic pilasters, attracts immediate attention. Dragons, boldly 

 sculptured in the brown tufa masonry, fill in the spandrels, while the arches have large keystones. 

 The main frieze is unbroken, and there is a solid parapet, with slight breaks over the pilasters 

 only. Two slight tower masses are raised at the ends to flank this loggia feature, the whole 

 contained within two advanced wings. The exterior of the villa hardly prepares the visitor for 

 the completeness of this fine faade, which faces towards the quadrangle. Immediately behind is a 

 great two-storeyed hall, vaulted, but now quite plain inside. Beyond it is a loggia on the other face 

 of the villa, still decorated, 

 but now, like the front 

 loggias, filled in with 

 glazing. Leaving the 

 great quadangle on the 

 right the visitor enters a 

 smaller oblong enclosure, 

 in which, attached to the 

 house, is a really magni- 

 ficent portico of five great 

 arches, the whole carried 

 out in dark brown tufa, 

 which, by reason of its 

 colour, does not photo- 

 graph very well. There 

 is a main order framing 

 the arches, and a minor 

 carrying the imposts, both 

 of the Ionic order. The 

 detail has more of the 

 character of the school 

 of Michael Angelo than that of Vignola. The entablature is unbroken, and there is a simple, 

 solid parapet. The spandrels are filled in with boldly carved dragons. The vaulting is 

 decorated with stucco work in transverse bands dividing the cross-vaulted bays (Fig. 190). Facing 

 this, at the other end of the enclosure, is the hemicycle with its sloping ways up. Within this 

 apse is a lunette-shaped pond with balustrading. The main arches in this great niche have 

 very shallow splays decorated with mosaics and stuccoes in perspective, the idea being to give 

 greater apparent depth to the recesses, which in themselves are very shallow. The rusticated 

 main pilasters are in the chocolate brown tufa masonry (Figs. 188 and 189). It is a distinguished 

 piece of work in comparison with the far cruder hemicycle of the Aldobrandini villa, which might 

 be considered as an enlarged and coarsened copy. A. T. B. 



When the western sun sets the three hundred and seventy-four windows of the 

 Mon Dragone fa9ade ablaze, they can be seen even from Rome. The villa was erected by 



185. THE FOUNTAIN OF PAUL V, VILLA MON DRAGONE. 



(1) Principal avenue. 



(2) Slopes to first terrace. 



(3) Terraces with kitchens under. 

 (.() (".rand vestibule. 



internal courts raised as bastions. 



:,(>) Principal courtyard. 



(7) (Inind gallery witli pictures. 



(8) Loggia to flower garden. 



(o) Flower garden. 



(10) Great dragon fountain hemi( y< le. 



(11) Living-room*. 



(12) Amphitheatre and terra< e. 



