Rome - Villa Medici

To the north of the Trinità dei Monti church, a few paces from the Piazza di Spagna, is the Villa Medici, a late Renaissance mansion with a severe main front and a richly articulated garden front to the rear, facing the Pincio. The villa was built by Annibale Lippe in 1544 for Cardinal Ricci da Montepulciano. It later passed to the Medici and the Grand Dukes of Tuscany, and was finally occupied in Napoleonic times by the French Academy, a foundation (still existing) for French artists. From 1630-33 Galileo was imprisoned in the villa on the order of the Inquisition.