Meeting with the guide in Piazza XX Settembre in Bagnaia from where you continue on foot to the Villa with a short walk of a few minutes. Duration of the guided tour: approx. 1.30 hours
Villa Lante was built as a summer residence for the bishops of Viterbo after 1568 on commission from Card. Giovanni Francesco Gambara, probably to Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola. The Italian garden divided into four terraces is built on the slope of a hill facing the village of Bagnaia, on the wooded offshoots of the Cimini Mountains. It is considered one of the most accomplished geometric gardens that stands out for its original design solutions, for the inventions of aqueous forms and for the perfection of the inclusion of the building in the natural environment. Everything in the garden is aimed at highlighting its great protagonist: water.
Itinerary for visiting Villa Lante.
The current entrance to Villa Lante leads to the Pegasus Fountain (1588) from where you enter the park on one side and the formal garden on the other. The current itinerary of the Italian garden starts from the first terrace at the bottom, from the richly designed Quadrato dei Mori. In the center of the square is the circular Fountain of the Moors, with four sculptures that support the mountains and the star of the Peretti Montalto. This fountain, by Giambologna (1529-1608), is the starting point of the axis made up of a series of profuse water features around which the entire garden was built. The twin buildings are placed symmetrically on the sides of the same terrace. They represent a surprising choice for the time by Vignola: the villa building which usually consisted of a single building, here is split into two smaller ones, giving more space to the garden than the built one. Behind the twin buildings opens the great uphill scenography: fountains and water features, views from above on the terraces, on the village and the surrounding nature create a harmonious whole underlined by the sparkle and the sound of the water that accompanies the visitor everywhere in the garden. Going up, it follows the hemicycle of the Fountain of the Lumini flanked by the artificial caves covered with Tartars dedicated to Venus and Neptune. Going further up, there is the long rectangle, the original Cardinal’s Mensa which reproduces a table with a stream that runs through it for a long time, made to place drinks and fruit on it, testifying to the modern taste of being outdoors. On the same terrace is the Fountain of the Giants, the latter silent witnesses of the celebrations of the high clergy of Viterbo and of papal and cardinal visits among which those of Pope Gregory XIII in 1578, of Pope Clement VIII in 1596, of Cardinal Carlo Borromeo in 1580. Among the inventions of water forms, that of the Gambero Fountain has become a model for many others of this type: a waterfall that descends between a long series of claws made in repetition of succession of a shrimp. This chain of water acts as a link with the octagonal Dolphin Fountain. To delimit the axis of water at the top of the garden is the Fountain of the Deluge or Rain, made in imitation of a natural cave. The water that feeds the fountains descends from a natural source of the Cimini Mountains by gravitational force and the first fountain it encounters is that of the Rain. The garden’s hydraulic system was developed by the Sienese architect Tommaso Ghinucci. To complete the symmetry effect of the terracing are the Loggias of the Muses placed on the sides of the same fountain from where you go back to complete the visit path in reverse, descending. The iconographic itinerary proposes on the one hand the usual Renaissance symbolism, on the other an iconography based on the Post-Tridentine program of the Catholic Church, developed by the client of the villa, Cardinal Giovanni Francesco Gambara, defender of post-Tridentine Catholic doctrine and judge of the Holy Office.
The Palazzina Gambara (1568-1578, commissioned by Card. Giovanni Francesco Gambara) preserves fresco cycles inside it made by painters working in the Farnesiana and Estense Court (Antonio Tempesta, Raffaellino da Reggio, Giovanni Battista Lombardelli and those related to Brescia area (Girolamo Muziano) of the client. The Palazzina Montalto (1611-1613, commissioned by Card. Alessandro Peretti Montalto) has decorations by Cavalier d’Arpino and school (1613-1615), by Agostino Tassi and circle (1615) Unfortunately, currently only the loggia of the two buildings are open to the public.
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