Imago Urbis: Giuseppe Vasi's Grand Tour of Rome

  194.   Casino della Villa Peretti sulla Piazza di Termini        


  1. Portone principale della Villa
  2. Casino principale
  3. Abitazione per la Famiglia Finili e Rimesse
  4. Parte delle ruine delle Terme Diocleziane

It is hard to explain why Vasi chose to depict the larger but less important of the two buildings in Villa Peretti. Nolli labels the huge villa built by Sixtus V Peretti (1585-1590) shown in this print as Villa Negroni già (formerly) Montalto. What Vasi refers to as the Casino principale (2) was actually a peripheral element of the Villa Montalto, facing out from the extensive grounds behind it onto Piazza di Termini. Not shown here but visible on the Nolli map was the main building, which was approached through a gate at the end of Via Urbana (NN 152). This was the main gate to the villa, and not the portone (1) (large gate) indicated by Vasi at the right edge of this print. Nolli shows that the whole line of buildings depicted here was built on the ruins of the perimeter wall of the Baths of Diocletian (4) a corner of whose central building is visible at far left (see Plate 35 for a closely related view of the main bath complex). The lower buildings to the left were living quarters for servants (3) as well as barns and stables for livestock. These structures were later called Le Botteghe di Farfa and were used as the station house for the railroad which reached Rome in the mid 19th century. After 1870 the whole villa disappeared, to be replaced by the new railroad station and a new neighborhood of the expanding city.

   

Jim Tice, Erik Steiner, Allan Ceen, and Dennis Beyer
Department of Architecture and InfoGraphics Lab, Department of Geography, University of Oregon

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