Villa Torlonia

DESCRIZIONE:
Once an agricultural holding of the Pamphilj and the Colonna, it was purchased in 1797 by the banker Giovanni Torlonia, for whom Giuseppe Valadier (1806) transformed two pre-existing buildings into a palace and the Casino dei Principi, adding a monumental entrance (destroyed by the expansion of Via Nomentana) and embellishing the park with classical statues purchased expressly for this purpose. It has been open to the public since 1978.
Today it is entirely a museum and, among other sights, the Casina delle Civette (the Owl Lodge) is open to visitors. Once the Capanna Svizzera (The Swiss Cabin, Giuseppe Jappelli, 1840), it was transformed by Enrico Gennari between 1908 and 1917. It owes its name to the decorative presence of owls, sign of the esoteric interests of Giovanni Torlonia. Splendid stained-glass windows, majolicas, mosaics and wrought iron, all make it a museum of the liberty style in Rome.

THINGS TO KNOW: During the twentieth anniversary of fascism, Benito Mussolini used the main building as his own residence, paying a symbollic annual rent to Torlonia of one lira. In those years, a bomb-shelter was built under the villa in the jewish catacombs.