According to the monograph "The Villa" by the architectural historian James S. Ackerman[1], the Villa, understood as a building type, is the one that leaves the most room for the designer’s poetics, since it is free of functionalism even while being destined for otium and delight. This allows such works to be taken as objects for the study of the particularities of design, and of taste, as much of the age of which each is a monument as of the architect’s choices (and, often, of the patron’s taste as well).

Ackerman, besides tracing its history from its Roman origins down to everyday use, classifies two types of Villa mainly on the basis of their siting within the territory and of their compositional and architectural characteristics.

Two types of villa therefore coexist: the first, the suburban villa, stands a short distance from the town centre, displays an architectural language typical of the urban palazzo and does not have a layout capable of housing stables or outbuildings, since its upkeep derives exclusively from the owner’s urban negotium; the second, on the other hand, the country villa[2], is typically immersed in a rural setting, its architectural language departs from that of the urban palazzo and provides for spaces given over to livestock or outbuildings, since its upkeep may be described as “self-sufficient”.

The Villa del Colle del Cardinale (Fig. 1), although at first glance it may look like a typical country villa, began life as a suburban residence.

Commissioned by Cardinal Fulvio della Corgna[3] and built between 1575 and 1580, with the fall of the family it passed, around the middle of the seventeenth century, into the hands of the Oddi Baglioni counts[4], only to be purchased in the second half of the nineteenth century by Commendatore Ferdinando Cesaroni[5]. During the 1920s his son sold it to the lawyer Luigi Parodi[6]. The villa thus remained in the hands of the Parodi family until 1997, the year in which it was acquired by the Superintendency for Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape of Umbria.

On the basis of cartographic and iconographic evidence it is possible to reconstruct the history of the works carried out: while the villa’s facies has for the most part been preserved intact over time, the garden and the external entrance have undergone considerable change, especially under the ownership of the Oddi Baglioni counts. Indeed, observing the wall fresco (Fig. 2) in one of the lunettes of the grand staircase contemporary with the villa, one can see how the building has come down to us unaltered in appearance, whereas the exteriors appear without the horseshoe-shaped planimetric layout and the ramps giving access to the level of the parterre[7].

As mentioned, the villa can be classified as suburban: the lateral rustication framing the paratactic scheme[8] of the façades, and the string-course cornices that lend altimetric rhythm to the elevations, are languages proper to the urban palazzo type.

The façade scheme is strongly Sangallesque in cast: this should come as no surprise, since Sangallo[9], besides having outlined the ideal façade of the urban palazzo with his design for the Palazzo Farnese in Rome[10], is the father of Perugia’s Rocca Paolina, physical evidence of his presence in Perugia; it is therefore legitimate to think that Umbrian architects, both contemporary and later, were influenced by his works and his poetics.

Another source attesting to the architect’s presence in Umbria can be found in the suburban residence of Cardinal Tiberio Crispo[11] near Orvieto, namely Palazzo Crispo (today Crispo Marsciano Fig. 3): designed by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, it was completed by the Orvieto sculptor and architect Ippolito Scalza[12].

Comparing the main elevation of Palazzo Crispo with the main elevation of the villa, the extreme similarity between the two is immediately perceptible.

Let us dwell briefly on the figure of Scalza and his relatives: his brother, Ludovico Scalza[13], unlike Ippolito, who worked exclusively in Orvieto, is found active in Perugia, both as a sculptor and as an architect: to him are attributed works on Palazzo Baldeschi al Corso, in Perugia, and the Funerary Monument to Giulio Orandini, in Perugia Cathedral. Ludovico Scalza is also among the architects who, at Perugia, in the absence of Galeazzo Alessi[14], were responsible for directing the building sites of the latter’s projects.

Although there is no documentation confirming Ippolito’s presence in Perugia or his relationship with Cardinal Fulvio della Corgna, comparing the villa with other works by the architect there is no lack of architectural elements and compositional schemes that are perfectly superimposable upon one another.

One of the buildings of the Orvieto master worth taking an interest in is Palazzo Buzi, whose ground floor presents a specific planimetric configuration (Fig. 4): once through the entrance portal one reaches a long corridor equal to the width of the palace, onto which quadrangular rooms open. If one observes the ground-floor plan of the villa (Fig. 5), it will be easy to note how this too presents the same composition: once through the main entrance, a long corridor opens before the visitor, onto which quadrangular rooms face.

The elements that arouse the greatest interest for their similarity are, without any doubt, the window frames of the mezzanine floors; consider those of the villa: plastered in white (Fig. 6), they display sinuous decorations made up of extremely schematic volutes, almost the fruit of a taste not yet fully matured.

If these are set against some of the frames designed by Galeazzo Alessi (Fig. 7 and Fig. 8), one can see how the sinuous lines produced by the schematic volutes are present in Alessi’s openings as well: yet, however extremely similar, it is evident that the villa’s frames and Alessi’s frames display a different hand.

Continuing with the comparative analysis, we come to the Scalzian frames: whether one looks at the design drawings (Fig. 9) or at the frames actually executed (Fig. 10), both display the decorative elements proper to the mezzanine window frames of the Villa del Colle del Cardinale. By contrast, as has already been made clear, in the villa these turn out to be schematic, almost unripe, whereas in the frames found at Orvieto the decorative elements and their compositional scheme turn out to be far more defined and, presumably, the work of the same draughtsman. Setting all this in chronological terms, the Villa del Colle del Cardinale predates Scalza’s Orvieto projects.

In conclusion, observing the Villa del Colle del Cardinale, retracing its history and comparing it with contemporary Umbrian works, it may be said that it is one of the emblematic works of the Umbrian architecture of its time, since it unites the architectural language of Perugia and that of Orvieto. In Umbria, then, albeit with undeniable Roman influences, a distinctive language of its own takes shape, dictated by influences coming from the Urbs but based above all on the local designers’ own expression.

Notes

[1]James Sloss Ackerman (San Francisco, 1919 – Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2016) was a professor at Harvard: his book "The Villa", of 1990, is to be considered “obligatory” reading if one wishes to understand the building type in question.

[2]An example of a country villa may be considered Villa Barbaro at Maser, designed by Palladio, located in Maser, Treviso, and dated 1550.

[3]Fulvio Giulio della Corgna (Perugia, 1517 – Rome, 1583), bishop and cardinal, nephew of Pope Julius III, brother of his mother, Giacoma Ciocchi del Monte, a member of one of the most important Perugian families of the time, together with his brother Ascanio.

[4]The Oddi Baglioni family: a noble Perugian family born from the union of the House of Oddi with the House of Baglioni.

[5]Commendatore Ferdinando Cesaroni (Fratta Todina, 1836 – Perugia, 1912).

[6]Luigi Parodi, a Genoese lawyer.

[7]A raised external platform set upon a base.

[8]A façade without elements that punctuate the compositional scheme: the elements are arranged, in an orderly manner, separate from one another (as opposed to the syntactic scheme: the presence of elements, e.g. pilaster strips, that emphasise the compositional scheme).

[9]Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, architect (Florence, 1484 – Terni, 1546).

[10]Commissioned by Pope Paul III Farnese from Antonio da Sangallo the Younger (later completed by Michelangelo), it is dated c. 1541–1580.

[11]Tiberio Crispo, cardinal (Rome, 1498 – Sutri, 1566), papal legate for Pope Paul III in Perugia from 1545 to 1548.

[12]Ippolito Scalza, sculptor and architect (Orvieto, 1532 – Orvieto, 1617), from a family of Orvieto sculptors, active in Orvieto.

[13]Ludovico Scalza, sculptor and architect (Orvieto, 1532 (?) – Orvieto, 1611).

[14]Galeazzo Alessi, architect (Perugia, 1512 – Perugia, 1572), one of the possible designers of the villa.

Bibliography

edited by C. Benocci, Giuseppe M. Della Fina, C. Fratini, STORIA DI ORVIETO, Quattrocento e Cinquecento, Tomo I, 2010, Pacini Editore, Pisa (PI).

edited by A. Satolli, Orvieto, Nuova guida illustrata, 1999, Ediprint Service srl, Città di Castello (PG).

Satolli, Alberto Satolli per Ippolito Scalza, 1993, Gattei Stampa & Stampa, Euroarte sas – Rimini (RN).

BOLLETTINO PER I BENI CULTURALI DELL’UMBRIA, Numero speciale per i 500 anni di Galeazzo Alessi, Anno 5, 2012, numero 9, BetaGamma editrice.