  Casino della Villa Altieri sul Monte Esquilino (Book 10) (Map A3) (Day 2) (View B8) (Rione Monti) In this page:
Villa Altieri was erected by Giovanni Antonio de' Rossi for Clemens
X's family. The Villa is inside the walls midway between S.
Maria Maggiore and S. Croce in Gerusalemme.
It had a front and a back garden and as Vasi points out from one garden
you could see the other one through an empty space in the ground floor.
The hidden garden had a famous maze and the two gardens were connected
through bizarre arches. The view is taken from the green dot in the small 1748 map here below.
In the description below the plate Vasi made reference to: 1) Acqua Claudia aqueduct;
2) Fountains and steps leading to the lower part of the gardens; 3) Hole in the Casino and fountain in the hidden garden. 1) is shown in another page. The
small map shows also 4) Villa Giustiniani Massimi; 5) Villa Astalli.
Only the Casino (today a school) is left of the whole Villa. Areas within the walls became so valuable after 1870 that the heirs of the Papal families could not resist the temptation of selling them.
The elliptical staircase, the triton, the cave-like arch remind us of Giambattista Marino the poet who, at the beginning of the Baroque century, theorized the objective of art being wonderment.
The 1883 Baedeker's Guide for Central Italy devoted nearly a page to this small casino near Piazza di S. Giovanni in Laterano, once a property of the Giustiniani and later on of the Massimi. The reliefs which decorated the XVIIth century casino were considered of little value and the page was dedicated to a lengthy description of the frescoes painted for Prince Camillo Massimo in 1821-28 by the German painters Schnorr, Koch, Veit, Overbeck and Fuhrich. The frescoes show scenes from Ariosto, Dante and Tasso. The gardens of Villa Massimi are lost: their main gate was moved to Villa Mattei.
Villa Astalli, a small casino built in the second half of the XVIIth century, was at that time almost a farm, although
the casino was decorated with stucco busts and friezes. Today it is located in one of the busiest crossroads of Rome.
A floor has been added to the original building. The Astalli were a prominent Roman family in the Middle Ages but
they lost power and wealth until a marriage with a niece of the very powerful sister-in-law of Pope Innocentius X gave
back to the family some importance.
Next plate in Book 10: Casino della Villa Mattei
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All images © 1999 - 2003 by Roberto Piperno. Write to romapip@quipo.it