188.

Villa, e Casino Medici sul monte Pincio

"On entering, oh guest, into these gardens, planted as you see on the Hill of Gardens, may it ever please you to praise them; you should know that they are open to the master and all the master's friends." This inscription, still visible on the entrance gate to the Villa Medici on Via di Porta Pinciana, is a reference to the Renaissance lex hortorum (law of the gardens) which gave the public limited right of access to suburban villas which had enclosed land previously accessible to the public. The Medici followed the custom for noblemen to own a palace in the center of Rome and a suburban villa on the edge of the city. Palazzo Madama, Plate 70, near Piazza Navona was the Medici palace. The Villa Medici was their strategically positioned suburban villa. It is defined by the Aurelian wall on the garden side, and by the edge of the Pincian hill on the other side, giving them a commanding view which dominated the whole of Campo Marzio. Ferdinando de' Medici bought the villa from the Ricci in 1564, completely remodeled the towered main wing, added the perpendicular statue gallery wing and redeveloped the gardens to the design clearly depicted on the Nolli map. The original entry gate to the villa was at the end of a long, straight path whose starting point is visible in this print between the two-level Galleria di Statue (5) and the Portici con statue (2) which served as a retaining wall for the Giardino pensile (3) (hanging garden, meaning "elevated"). The three large antique basins (4) ornament the garden along with an Egyptian granite obelisk (1) at far left. The latter was moved to the Medici gardens in Florence in 1788, and was later replaced with a copy. In 1803 the French government acquired the villa in order to replace the former Académie de France located in the Palazzo Mancini on Via del Corso (Plate 170). The French Academy retains its quarters in the villa to this day.