196.

Casino di Villa Mattei sul Monte Celio

Vasi uses a volo d’uccello or bird's eye view to better show the relationship between the Villa Mattei and its extensive gardens. The architect Jacopo Del Duca developed this villa for the Mattei on their family farm in the 1580s. In 1584 the Roman Senate gave Ciriaco Mattei the obelisk (3) which had once stood on the Capitoline hill. This obelisk became the center of the stadium-shaped space in which it stands, whose design recalls garden elements in ancient Roman villas, and foreshadowed a similar space in Villa Borghese, Plate 187. The underlying classical reference is further re-enforced by the fact that obelisks once adorned the spina (spine wall) of ancient stadia. Nolli shows that the main gate (1) to the casino faces away from the viewer toward the Piazza della Navicella, Plate 52. The apse of the church of S. Maria in Domnica (2) located in the same piazza, is shown in the distance. In the foreground Vasi depicts a long ramp and a symmetrical pair of stairs (4) which connect the lower level of the villa to the casino. Since 1928, the upper part of the villa has been a public park.