When I was a younger art historian, I was fortunate to live on the Janiculum hill in Rome for a few months at the American Academy in Rome. Nearby was some of the most incredible urban parkland I had ever seen. My friend and I spent a lot of time enjoying the extensive grounds and manicured gardens, finding our privacy in this vast parkland as ironic as that sounds. But, as so often in life, it was only later that I realized what a magnificent jewel of historical significance that this place, the Villa Doria Pamphili, truly was. I’d like to share some of it with you now.

This historic villa is set within the 3rd largest public park in Rome (180 hectares) and is located just outside the walls in the Gianicolense district on the western slopes of the Janiculum Hill. Today it is the largest landscaped public park in the city and very much worth at least one if not many visits in a lifetime.

Inside stands the architectural jewel of the villa, the Casino del Bel Respiro, or Algardi, which now serves as an official seat of the Italian government.

This villa was constructed as the country estate of the Pamphili family, first designed in its current iteration in the 17th century from the fusion of several pre-existing vineyards. Nobleman Panfilo Pamphili purchased the property, then known as the Villa Vecchia, in 1630. This part of the city was known as a Bel Respiro, or beautiful breath, due to its location on a hill above the lower areas of Rome which were prone to malaria. This location on higher ground also meant that the views were impressive – one of the most desirable features for the location of a villa at any time or place.

Another member of the family, Cardinal Giambattista Pamphili, was elected pope in 1644 and took the name Pope Innocent X. With his rise to power, his family wanted a grander and more luxurious villa on the site of the land they had purchased, which was very handily located near the Vatican. This had to make Innocent X the most fortunate of all the popes in this regard at least.

Portrait of Innocent X, by Diego Velázquez (1650, Galleria Doria Pamphili, Rome)

And thus, between 1644 and 1652, while the Pamphili family was gaining prestige thanks to Innocent X’s pontificate, a Villa Nuova was planned. Designs were drawn up and the project was finally given to the Bolognese sculptor, Alessandro Algardi, who was assisted by Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi, architect and artist.

Construction on the above-mentioned central casino, or small country house, began in 1645. It featured a central, circular room with other chambers leading off from it. It was completed just two years later in 1647 and is often referred to as the Casino del Bel Respiro. It was needed to exhibit the family’s opulent collection of sculptures that had been sourced from the ancient and contemporary art world; this also included sarcophagi, vases, and other items of antiquity.

In fact, the casino was been used almost entirely as a gallery to host this private collection. The family and guests would stay elsewhere, in the older Vecchia Vigna.

Its design was somewhat more Mannerist than Baroque, but above all classicized to refer back to structures of the past – such as at Villa Medici – in an attempt to cement a longstanding legacy of the Pamphili family in antiquity.

The surrounding gardens were designed by the nephew of Pope Innocent X, Camillo Pamphili, in 1650. He created a formal design with clipped hedges in geometric patterns, neat woodlands, and a rusticated grotto. Fountains pooled into a canal that ran through the property; this was a reminder for sophisticated viewers of the Canopus at Hadrian’s Villa, and yet another attempt to connect the Pamphili family to the opulence and power of Imperial Rome.

The fountains adorning its gardens, were built by some of the greatest artists of the time, such as Alessandro Algardi, Giovan Francesco Grimaldi, and Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

The lower land on the south side of the building became the Giardino Segreto or secret garden. This terrace is only visible from the casino and the upper terraces, and was planted with orange trees, lawns and clipped hedges.

Although the Pamphili family attempted to seal their own legacy through the architecture and gardens of the villa, the last male member of the family, Girolamo Pamphili, died in 1760 and left no male heirs. The loss of the family line led to disputes as to who might be the possible heir to the estate.

It was finally settled in 1763 when Prince Giovanni Andrea IV Doria was granted the right to take the surname, the coat of arms and the properties of the Pamphili family by order of Pope Clement XIII. This story is so reminiscent of the Medici family in Florence.

His claim was based on a marriage between his predecessor, Prince Giovanni Andrea III Doria, and Anna Pamphili. From that moment on, the villa was called, as it still is today, the Villa Doria Pamphili.

This latter half of the 18th century ushered in a continuation of developments for the villa’s landscaped gardens. A number of features were added throughout this period. Fountains and gateways attributed to Gabriele Valvassori among others.

Thus, the Villa Doria Pamphili took on the full aspect of a sumptuous noble country residence.

Despite the peaceful intent for and experience of the villa grounds, in 1849 during the Siege of Rome, the villa was the scene of one of the bloodiest battles for the defect of the Roman Republic. On June 2 the French troops occupied the nearby Villa Corsini and the next day Garibaldii’s trooped tried in vain to reconquer it.

In 1856 the villa was enlarged by Prince Andrea V Doria Pamphilj who acquired and added Villa Corsini at Porta San Pancrazio.

Among the works carried out in the second half of the 19th century are the Arco dei Quattro Venti, the monumental entrance to the villa, the restoration of the Corsini Palace, the Greenhouses, and the Monument to the French Fallen.

In 1957, the Italian State expropriated the villa and divided it in two in 1960 for the opening of Via Leone VIII. In 1972, the park was opened to the public.

Antiquities: While the 17th-century estate was designed as a modern Baroque escape, Villa Doria Pamphili sits directly atop an extensive ancient Roman necropolis and the ancient Via Aurelia Antica. As a result, numerous parts of the villa still preserve important evidence of the Roman and medieval ages: the northern boundary along the Via Aurelia Antica partly coincides with the Trajan-Paul aqueduct structures.

When the Pamphili family excavated the grounds in the 1820s and 1830s to build their gardens, and later during modern municipal work, a massive subterranean world was uncovered. Important funerary structures from the Roman period have been found in numerous areas of the park (particularly important those brought to light at the Casino del Bel Respiro). The Casale di Giovio preserves fine Imperial age masonry examples and a decorated early medieval architrave.

While one hopes the best art was conserved and moved into modern museums such as at the Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, physical architectural traces remain visible to park visitors today.

For example, you can see visible masonry and stone wall remnants of the necropolis and some tombs near the park borders along the Via Aurelia Antica. Portions of the ancient Roman Aqua Traiana, originally built in 109 AD to brink water from Lake Bracciano, man across parts of the estate. Deep in the western half of the park, the medieval farmhouse known as Casale di Giovio was built directly on top of a small square ancient Roman funerary temple.

If you are interested, you can find many videos about the Villa on Youtube. The Galleria of the Palazzo Doria Pamphili is altogether a different place and location within Rome, for it was the city home of the illustrious family. I hope to visit the Galleria for the first time this winter and come back here to tell you all about it!

ci vediamo presto!

Per esempio: mio figlio! We were garden visiting in the Pacific Northwest. Look at the size of those gunnera leaves!

Love you forever Jamester!

Apropos to exactly nothing, I was fondly recalling my last visit to these fabulous gardens and decided to share some of my videos with you. It was springtime in Paris and I never experienced anything more lovely!

I’m planning a trip to Paris and specifically this area of the city for later this year if my arm heals well, and have been daydreaming about how glorious it is.

Divertiti! Enjoy!

On a recent gorgeous afternoon, before my accident, I happened to be in Piazza Santa Maria Novells and the sky was so blue, the sun so warm but not hot like summer, I stopped to enjoy the experience of just being in this lovely space. While there I couldn’t help but notice this darling little bambina and capturing her interest in one of the only patches of green grass in the city. Children and green grass on a warm day: gorgeous! I just wish she could have gotten on it.

Doing my absolute best to hold my left forearm completely still and elevated so I hopefully can avoid surgery on it, my mind wanders.

I remember Mexico! It was fabulous, and as always filled with ups (climbing atop an Aztec temple) and downs (so homesick I thought I would perish).

Can’t write much more, I’m typing one handed!

This lovely couple were hosts to us 4 very fortunate American high school girls for 6 weeks while we “studied” Spanish at a local school in Saltillo.

When I returned home and started my senior year of high school. my Spanish teacher thought I had really advanced in my language skills. I was pretty sure I hadn’t. But she asked me to be her conversation assistant for her junior high school classes and I actually learned a lot doing that!

As I also learned early in my art history career, teaching a subject really makes you collect and organize information in a way that focuses the mind like no other technique!

It was a fabulous summer to remember forever! I’m sending out a huge belated thank you to all of the people and organizations that helped me achieve this wonderful experience. Especially, and always, to my mom. It was her love of “old Mexico” that first made me thirst for that adventure, which happily led to many more. And, more to the point, that experience led me to where I am today, in this life in Florence.

I’m really happy to say that for my mom and me, decades after these pictures were taken, we went to Mexico together for her 70th birthday! At the time she was living in her favorite place, Boulder, Colorado and I was living in Boston. Her birthday fell in February and so, for both of us, a week in Mexico during winter felt like a triple treat! We were together, we were in Mexico!, and we were cheating winter of a week of its sting in both of our cold climes. Perfect!

Sweet, sweet memories, all around! Hasta luego!

The Empire State Building is lit up in the colors of the Italian flag in honor of the month.

I don’t have genetic Italian heritage, but everyone knows I appreciate Italian culture!

And my name, Lauretta, is Italian. I’m named for my grandmother and thank my great grandmother often for her selection of names for her baby girl! Grazie bisnonna!

This Cenacolo, or Last Supper, is located in the dining room of the former convent of Sant’ Onofrio, also known as the Sisters of Foligno (yes, I am aware of the two spellings: Fuligno and Foligno), transformed into a “Conservatory for poor and honest girls” in 1980.

The refectory was renovated and embellished in the 15th century with some frescoes by Bicci di Lorenzo. There were some noble women who became nuns here including Onofria de’Conti degli Abruzzo and Giovanna di Onofrio degli Onofri who both gave considerable support.

Perhaps even more significantly, Il Magnifico, Lorenzo de’ Medici himself and the Lapaccini family both subsidized the cloistered sisters. One can tell from the number and quality of the artworks produced for this space that there were some pretty sophisticated patrons of the convent. The nun’s rooms were decorated in the period from 1480-85 by painters from the school of Perugino, which was quite prestigious.

And now to the monumental fresco, which was, almost unbelievably, only found in 1845!

It is of such high quality it was initially attributed to Raphael!

Today’s art scholars agree that the work was probably created by one of the pupils of Pietro Vannucci, known as “il Perugino”(1445/50-1523). The work was painted around 1493-96. Raphael had in fact studied painting under Perugino and absorbed his luminous technique so well that his early paintings are hard to tell apart from his teacher’s. So, for almost a century after its discovery, the student got the credit for the master.

Critics have also suggested that the work replaces a previous fresco of the same subject painted by Neri di Bicci (1419-1491). The fresco is considered to be one of the most important examples of the Umbrian culture in Florentine Renaissance. The Refectory today also preserves also some frescoes by Bicci di Lorenzo (1429) removed from other parts of the convent.

What I love about this particular Cenacolo (and there are many fine Renaissance ones still extant in Florence) is that the artist didn’t just paint the usual table and seated figures, even if that is all the subject matter calls for. Behind Christ and the Apostles is a fascinating landscape that actually contains a second subject: The Agony in the Garden. The painter has therefore given us, the viewers, the whole night before the crucifixion unfolding right before our eyes.

Judas sits apart from the others, turned toward the viewer, as he often does in this genre of painting. One of the Apostles seems to have fallen asleep while sitting next to Christ. That’s not the norm in these pictures!

But, what about the painted architecture! What an elaborate system of piers, decorated in relief sculpture. The painter went above and beyond what was required to represent a Cenacolo, and I for one appreciate the attention to superfluous detail!

Another aspect of this painting which I very much appreciate is the attention to the eating utensils. One assumes these instruments, including the common knife but also an item that looks a lot like one chopstick but seems to be used as a pick or a fork, were in common use in the mid 1490s, when the painting was created. I’ve not seen anything like it before and these are the kinds of details I adore!

All in all. viewing this impressive fresco for the first time what very much a Renaissance era treat, right here and now in 2026!

An unfortunate step sent me hurtling to the pavement yesterday as I tripped in a pothole. There were unfortunate consequences. I fell hard, landed on my two hands and broke one wrist badly.!

A good Samaritan saw me fall, helped me up, called an ambulance, got me an ice pack from a caffetteria and waited with me for the ambulance. It took 20 mins.

Thank you most sincerely to Leonardo who would accept no payment but was extremely kind and thoughtful!

I was delivered over Florence’s VERY BUMPY ROADS (you never realize it in a taxi with good springs, but with a sore limb and a van that has seen many days in service, you notice it all!) to the Pronto Soccorso at Santa Maria Nuova, the city’s oldest hospital founded in 1288 by a wealthy Florentine merchant, Leo de Ricovero Portinari (d. 1289). Coincidentally, it was his daughter, Beatrice, who was the unwitting muse for Dante’s Divine Comedy. Ah, Florence!

The naked eye could see things inside my arm were messed up and a set of Xrays revealed all the damages. I was told that I’d be put under and they would try to manipulate my shattered bones into place and put on a cast.

Then a 2nd xray was taken to see if the setting was adequate.

I was warned that surgery would likely be necessary because it was a bad break.

Very luckily for me the on-call orthopedic surgeon was talented and got the bones placed in order manually.

They took a second set of Xrays and said I was in good shape. I return to the hospital in a week for Xrays yo double check setting of bones.

On this first morning of my new normal I’m busy cancelling spectacular events I had planned for the entire month of October in Rome. So sorry to have to do it.

Bear with me, dear reader, as I accustom myself to to this new way of life for a couple of months. I suspect there will be many fewer blog posts, following my record year of daily blogs so far in 2026!