The Villa Farnesina, which now belongs to the State and houses the National Print Cabinet (Gabinetto Nazionale delle Stampe; viewing by appointment only), was built in the 16th century with all the lavishness and splendor of the period. This Renaissance palace was designed by Baldassare Peruzzi (1508-22) for the banker Agostino Chigi and decorated by famous artists, including Raphael, Giulio Romano, Sebastiano del Piombo, Peruzzi himself and Sodoma.
Here Popes, cardinals, princes, diplomats, artists and men of letters were entertained in princely fashion. Illustrious guests were given silver dishes bearing their own coat-of-arms, which they threw into the nearby Tiber after the banquet (though a net spread in the river enabled them to be recovered afterwards). The palace was acquired by the Farnese family in 1580, and in the 18th century it passed to the Bourbons of Naples.
On the walls and ceiling on the garden loggia of the Villa are scenes from the myth of Cupid and Psche (after Apuleius), painted by Raphael and his pupils Giulio Romano and Francesco Penni (1517). In a fashion typical of the Renaissance they depict youthful pagan divinities in the setting of Papal Rome, combining Greco-Roman and Christian ideals. The figures in the Spandrels are by Raphael himself.
In the Sale di Galatea, beside lunette frescoes by Sebastiano del Piombo (scenes from Ovid's Metamorphosis) and Baldassare Perussi's "Starry Sky," is Raphael's magnificent fresco depicting the triumph of the nymph Galatea (1511) who was pursued by the one-eyed Cyclopes Polyphemus. The assumption that Imperia, the beloved of Chigi, was portrayed in this painting is not verified.
Also of interest in the Salone delle Prospettiva on the upper story are the trompe-l'Üil paintings by Balsassare Peruzzi. These were carried out at the beginning of the 16th century and depict a square in ancient Rome in which the colonnades appear to open out to the viewer.
The masterpiece of Sodoma in the bedroom of Agnostino Chigi is "The marriage of Alexander and Roxana" (daughter of the Persian King Darius) painted in 1511-12. The painting shows the bedchamber with the Macedonian commander presenting his betrothed with the crown, symbolizing the victory of love; Hymen and the little Erato, with love's arrows, helping to disrobe Roxanne emphasize the erotic nature of the situation. Sodoma also painted "Alexander's pardon of the Persian Family Darius."
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