Villa Mattei - Villa

Villa

In 1553 the vineyard was acquired for 1000 gold scudi by Giacomo Mattei (who also built the 15th century building in piazza Mattei), but it was Ciriaco Mattei who transformed it into a villa in 1580, instructing the architect Giacomo Del Duca (a student of Michelangelo) to build the villa and the first garden scheme. The original villa has been much adapted, but was probably a single-floor structure with a portico along its facade, topped by a Doric frieze and balustrade which still survive. It now has a quadrangular plan with two low wings and a piazza on an artificial platform supported by large ancient walls (largely Flavian and still visible from the south side).

The Mattei collections began to be gutted in 1770 with the sale of 10 statues to the Vatican (including the Amazon, Pudicitia, and seated Trajan, all now at the Louvre) and in 1802 with the head of Augustus (still in the Vatican). The villa, however, remained in the Mattei family until sold by them 1802. The villa then changed hands rapidly - in 1813 it was acquired by prince Manuel de Godoy, prince of La Paz and minister of Charles IV of Spain. The villa was then taken over by Princess Marianne of the Netherlands (daughter of William I of the Netherlands), then by Frederica (princess of Prussia and of Bauffremont) in 1857, and finally by the Bavarian baron Richard Hoffman in 1869. In the First World War the Italian State confiscated the villa as the property of an enemy national, and in 1923 the most important sculptures in the gardens were moved to the Museo Nazionale Romano. In 1926 the villa was given to the Società Geografica Italiana.