Villa Madama

Raphael's unfinished project, an extraordinary example of Renaissance architecture

Villa Madama represents one of the finest examples of Roman Renaissance architecture, the result of a period in which the dialogue with the ancient world translated into new forms of representation of landscape and power. The project was begun in 1519 da Raffaello Sanzio for Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, at a time when the artist was developing an increasingly broad vision of architecture as a synthesis between building, garden, and territory. The building, later known as Villa Madama when it passed to Duchess Margherita Farnese, nevertheless remained unfinished: the works were in fact interrupted as early as 1523. Despite this, numerous drawings relating to the arrangement of the surrounding areas and gardens have been preserved, which allow us to reconstruct the various design phases and the evolution of the original idea.

Discover historical images of Villa Madama

The first system: amphitheatre courtyard and entrance fountains

The original project included a complex structure around a large semicircular courtyard, almost an open-air theater, from which monumental staircases and axial paths would branch off, connecting the different levels of the garden. This layout, strongly influenced by descriptions of Roman imperial villas, translates into architecture an idea of continuity between building and landscape, where architecture does not impose itself but integrates and dialogues with nature.

Further landscaped areas were arranged on the sides of the villa. A tree-lined garden with a fountain was planned at the entrance to the city, while on the opposite side was a second, similar space, identified as the "fountain square," which still exists today. This complex likely constitutes the initial design, already rich and detailed.

Plans of Villa Madama by Rudolph-Redtenbacher

Plan of Villa Madama by Rudolph Redtenbacher

The advanced project: the three-terrace system

This appears to have been the original plan. However, traces remain of a later design by Raphael, with a more grandiose layout of the gardens. The gardens were conceived as a unified system organized across three successive terraces: the first square, the second circular, and the third rectangular with semicircular sides. These terraces, arranged in front of the villa and slightly off-center to the left, would have been connected by an elaborate system of steps. The reference is clear: a layout similar to that introduced by Donato Bramante in the famous Belvedere courtyard.

The part visible today, although incomplete, still preserves some of the most extraordinary rooms of the Renaissance. Among these, the frescoed loggia, famous for its grotesque decorations and the richness of its stucco work, which testify to the collaboration between artists and craftsmen of the highest level. Here, architecture becomes scenography, blending painting, sculpture and space into a highly refined unicum.

An uncertain unitary design between villa and garden

However, looking at the drawings and surviving graphic evidence, it can be assumed that the architect's attention was more focused on the building itself than on the landscape. Furthermore, it seems plausible that he had in mind a model inspired by the ancient Roman villa, understood more for its picturesque value than its strictly architectural one.

Despite the interruption of the works in 1523, the drawings and preparatory studies that have come down to us allow us to reconstruct the original ambition of the project: a villa conceived not only as a place of representation, but as a real landscape device, capable of orchestrating views, paths and visual relationships with the surrounding territory.

Plan of the Casino Nobile of Villa Madama by Giuseppe Vasi

A lasting legacy in landscape architecture

Despite the incompleteness of the project, some of the solutions developed by Raphael—both those realized and those that remained on paper—had a lasting influence on the history of the garden.
In particular, elements such as the tiered theater, curvilinear staircases and system of successive and sloping terraces, strongly connected to each other, became reference models for landscape architecture in the following centuries.

Today Villa Madama remains asuspended work between what has been achieved and what might have been. Much of its charm lies precisely in this unfinished dimension: a design laboratory where one can clearly glimpse Raphael's extraordinary ability to blend the memory of antiquity, spatial innovation, and landscape sensitivity.

Some photos were taken from the film shot by the National Gallery in London in collaboration with the Scuderie del Quirinale, on the occasion of the exhibition dedicated to Raphael, in the five hundredth anniversary of the artist's death, thanks to the availability of the relevant offices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.