Day 53 (5/13/11)

Our group trip today took us to two nearby villas: Villa Farnese and Villa Lante. Both are very famous and feature some pretty fantastic architecture that we have seen many times in various classes. Our first stop was to Villa Farnese, located in Caprarola. After disembarking our bus we walked up a hill (typical) until we came to the main entry area for the building. The approach is pretty great since the Villa is oriented on the main axis with the town, so as you approach it from the street more and more is revealed to you as it becomes nearer. The first step of the entry was a small courtyard with two curved stairs beginning on either side and forming half-circles up to the next level. In between them was a pretty great entrance into something mysterious that looked like a very old version of the main façade sitting above it. After climbing up these stairs we came to a bigger open space with a great view back down the hill and out into the city. After traversing it we came to a set of mirrored zigzag stairs that acted in the same way as the circular set. Once again we climbed these, looked at the view out again, and enjoyed the main façade in all its orthogonal and simple beauty.
Once we had spent some time outside we entered into a nice little area filled with various paintings where we met our tour guide for the day. We talked here for a while about the history of the Farnese Family, and the history of the site in particular. It was originally designed to be a fort, but after the family had acquired its fame and fortune, it was turned into a villa. The only changes to the design were the stunting of four of the five towers (the building is a pentagon) to turn them into porches, and the addition of a circular courtyard. After discussing this for a while we walked up a pretty amazing spiral staircase that was at the same time very open and airy and constricting. The spiral sat in the middle of a larger room, which made it a little disorienting as you walked around the middle. The landing at the top was also pretty fantastic as it protruded out into the space over the center of the spiral, allowing some pretty great pictures! Unfortunately, since we were a part of an organized tour we hade to adhere to their rules, which meant spending much less time in most places than we wanted.
Anyway, after exiting the stair room we came into a pretty great loggia that ran around the circular courtyard. Aside from the pretty neat scale and the nice decoration, another cool feature was the view to the upper levels that stepped back away from the edge of the courtyard. They were all squared off on the insides, which created an interesting contrast between their hard edges and the smooth and continues courtyard. From here we started a tour through the fifteen main rooms of this level, the first being a beauty! Its far wall was filled with giant arched windows that brought a ton of beautiful light into the space and casted some pretty great shadows. The room also had a fountain inside, which would have looked good even without the amazing shadows from the windows. The view out of the windows was amazing; the drop-off from the immediate density of the city below into the massive valley beyond was very interesting. After this room we moved into the chapel.
The best part about this room was the fact that it is circular. I find it very interesting that there are so many circles (courtyard, stairs, this chapel so far) in this very orthogonal and rigid building. The procession through these varying spaces creates an odd but very enjoyable feeling. After this room we went through a series of rooms filled from floor to ceiling with beautiful frescoes. Each one was dramatically different from the one before it, and it was quite an adventure! The ceilings were always the best parts of these spaces, as each featured fantastic scenes and many great examples of forced perspective. One example featured a double layer of columns leading to a fake dome above, which was quite disorienting until you stood in the right place.
After another series of rooms (varying in subject and decoration but similar in my descriptions so I will skip that) we came to a fantastic transitional space. The Villa features both summer and winter apartments, allowing the inhabitants to take advantage of the sunlight changes and the different scenery. Between these zones was a very cramped and seemingly forgotten little corridor completely covered in tree paintings. It was pretty cool to walk through it, and the release into the next room really amplified the idea of change and new beginnings. The next room was fantastic for an entirely new reason: The architecture of the space (a perfect cube with an arched space above) created amazing acoustics so that when you clap in the middle you can hear it reverberating around the room for a few seconds!
After enjoying this for a while (not long enough though…) we continued through a room filled with original maps of the world from the 16th century. It was amazing how accurate these were (minus the absence of Australia), and to see the guesses and observations of these countries during this time was pretty amazing. After enjoying this last room for a while we exited the building to walk through the two gardens. The first was a pretty fantastic and personal space filled with hedges and surrounded by trees. We spent little time here since the main garden is up the hill, so we began our ascent through a fantastically natural wooded space filled with gorgeous flowers and some amazing light. A few minutes later we arrived at the fountain complex that capped the natural portion of the gardens. The scale was pretty amazing, and the linear and regimented organization seemed like a reference to the building below. Beyond the initial fountain was an amazing staircase that had a highly articulated series of stepped fountains running down it. The second level had another fantastic fountain with a grotto (sadly closed) underneath and more small water features. We made our way around a small building through more hedge features to another set of stairs and up to the final level. This final garden had a great fountain in the middle and stepped up towards nature beyond. We sat here and enjoyed the space before walking back down to the first garden where we saw an awesome artificial cave that had a controllable water feature that made it seem like it was raining.
This was our last stop on the tour so we said goodbye and made our way up the road along a ridge that looked down into very dense woods and beyond into the valley. After some more climbing we got on the bus and set off for Villa Lante. Once we had arrived at the town of Bagnaia we walked up to the entry to the gardens. This particular Villa is more important because of its fantastic gardens than its architecture. The first space we came to was an awesome fountain and pool that seemed to act as a retaining wall for the rest of the landscape beyond (we studied this one a lot in Theory). We made our way up and into the main gardens before splitting up to explore the grounds for the rest of our day. The first area was a fantastically articulated space with tons of hedges creating amazing patterns and cool paths through the area. The fountain in the middle was pretty spectacular as well, and after finishing here we set off for the climb up through the series of terraced spaces beyond. A series of stairs and some pretty steep hedge-paths led us up to another level with another fountain and some beautiful trees and flowers. The best part about this was the view down onto the first space, which was even better from above! One pretty great part about this space was how we would work our way through very manicured and man-made spaces that were surrounded and sometimes closed in upon by trees that had been left alone. This juxtaposition was pretty great and helped keep this garden from becoming too “designed.” We continued up to another level with a great axial fountain that ran down a set of stairs and then up to another level with the final fountain space. The look back down was fantastic every time and from any vantage point you could find, making it difficult to continue on instead of sitting and enjoying.
One other interesting part about this procession of spaces was how they started to become more natural and unrefined until the final fountain space, which was more of a large rock formation than a designed piece. From here we slipped under a rope and walked around the backside. This was a fantastic choice since the deterioration of the design was completed back here as nature completely took over and only small remnants of walls were left. We climbed up to the top of the rock wall space and enjoyed a limited view back down the whole way. We also found the cistern for the whole thing, and it was pretty great to listen to the water rushing through. After a very peaceful walk back through some of the woods beyond and finding a great clearing with the property wall in it, I set off for the beginning. On the way I stopped in one of the pavilions in the entry garden, which had some nice, original frescoes inside.
From there I made my way out into the mostly unarticulated park space that sat directly next to the main gardens. Wandering through this free space that was so still and peaceful but at the same time full of activity (mostly the animals and the wind through the trees) was really a fantastic experience. After wandering around I found a fountain and a nice pool hidden back in the woods, as well as the other side of the property wall, before heading through denser woods back towards the main gardens. It was then that my definition of the word serene was discovered: listening to Stairway to Heaven as I wandered through these woods with nothing but the crunching of leaves and the singing of birds to accompany the tune. Once I had made it back to the edge of the gardens I followed the wall down, stopping in a few of the really creepy dungeon-like rooms beneath the gardens, before returning to the main entrance.
At this point it was about time to go so we all made our way down to the piazza where we would catch the bus. For the last few minutes I wandered back through a nice tunnel space and into an amazing little private piazza that was closed in by a very dense set of buildings. After the last seconds of our trip were gone we got back on the bus and slept the whole way home (unfortunate since the scenery was probably amazing!). When we got back I ran out to an art store to pick up another pocket sketchbook for notes, printed out directions to our hostel in Milan, and got ready to go! We are leaving for the train station at ten tonight and taking the night train into Turin, arriving at about seven tomorrow! So after a quick dinner, a quick shower, and some last second preparations it was time to go!