Villa Sciarra in Rome

Urban villa of Rome located on the slopes of the Janiculum hill

Villa Sciarra is one of the urban villas of Rome located on the slopes of the Gianicolo hill between the districts of Trastevere and Monteverde Vecchio, partly bordered by the Gianicolo walls, which can be accessed from two possible entrances: the first on Piazzale Wurts, designed by Pio Piacentini, which takes its name from the last owner, George Washington Wurts, who was responsible for the layout of the garden and the monuments in it, and the second on Largo Filippo Minutilli. It takes its name from the noble papal family of Sciarra. The last owners, before the donation of the Villa to the Italian State, were George Wurts, an American passionate about gardens, and his wife Henriette Tower, a rich heiress from Philadelphia. The couple had the building completely renovated in neo-Renaissance style and the garden redesigned: they placed numerous eighteenth-century sandstone statues there. The statues and fountains that adorn the garden are inspired by mythological figures such as fauns, cherubs and nymphs and are mostly from the Palazzo Visconti in Brignano Gera d'Adda, in the province of Bergamo, which in turn fell into ruin and was sold at auction in 1892. On the fountain of the Satyrs and that of the Putti it is still possible to identify the heraldic snake of the Visconti family. The small building inside the Villa is currently the headquarters of the Italian Institute of Germanic Studies and for this purpose it was modernized in 1932 by the architects A.Calza Bini and M.De Renzi.