VILLA ALDOBRANDINI 



From the end of the sixteenth century onwards especially favourable 

 conditions prevailed in the neighbourhood of Rome for the production 

 of great gardens. The country was gradually settling down after the 

 petty wars that had kept the peninsula for so many years in a ferment. 

 Money appeared to be plentiful ; furthermore there was at this time no 

 lack of architects and sculptors who were prepared to undertake work on 

 any scale, however grand. 



Not the least skilled amongst these architects was Giacomo della 

 Porta, a native of Milan. He was perhaps the greatest of the architects 

 who followed Vignola, and after the death of Michael Angelo he had 

 been entrusted, in conjunction with Domenico Fontana, with the com- 

 pletion of the dome of St. Peter's. It would be too long a story 

 to give a list of his works, of which the Villa Aldobrandini was 

 the last. 



Here he seems to have had the fullest scope for his talents, and to 

 have used thbm to excellent purpose. The unusual handling of the 

 baroque casino itself, with its gable corners and stilted roof-gable, surprises 

 rather than satisfies, and we recognise that in the building of this casino 

 della Porta has shaken himself free from the usual laws that govern the 

 architect, and has allowed himself a liberty which he would not have 

 taken with more serious work. 



The main lines of the villa, the arrangement of the mighty terraces 

 and stairways, present a splendid example of the more powerful style of 

 that time, the work being extremely well carried out under della Porta's 

 supervision by Orazio Olivieri and Giovanni Fontana, who are here seen 



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