179 
THE VILLA MON DRAGONE AND VILLA BORGIIESE, FRASCATI. 
and outbuildings were due to Giovanni Fontana, and the plantation of the gardens to Carlo 
Rainaldi (i6ii — 1691). 
The owner was Cardinal Marco Sitico d’Altemps, nephew of Pope Pius IV. Gregory 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. 
I he 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 fayade, 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 brow'n tufa, 
w’hich, bv 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 boldlv carved dragons. The vaulting is 
decorated with stucco w'ork in transverse bands dividing the cross-vaulted bays (Fig. 190), Facing 
this, at the other end of the enclosure, is the heraicycle 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 
hlon Dragone facade ablaze, they can be seen even from Rome. The villa was erected by 
(1) Princiiial avenue. (5) Jntcrnal coiuts raised r.s bastirms. (0) Flower garden. 
(2) Slopes to first terrace. (6) Principal courtyard. (10) l>reat dragon fountain hemicvcle. 
(3) Terracc.s with liitchens under. (7) Grand gallery with pietuics. (ii) f.iving-rooms. 
(4) Grand vestibule. (8) Loggia to flower garden. (12) .Amphitheatre and terrace. 
