Villa Madama

In the 1518, then the Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, cousin of the reigning pontiff Leo X, commissioned the initial design of the villa from Raphael. However Raphael died in 1520, and the work continued under disciples of Raphael, including Antonio da Sangallo the Younger in construction and a large team involved in the decoration. There appear to have been frequent disputes over the plans. Construction soon ceased and the villa was far from complete, when after the death of Leo X in 1521, the cardinal had returned to Florence. In 1523, with Giulio de' Medici's ascension to Pope Clement VII, work restarted and the apartment and garden loggia were completed that year. The decorations of the Villa are by Giulio Romano and Baldassare Peruzzi, both major architects in their own right; Giovanni da Udine completed the bas-reliefs in stucco, inspired by the classic Ancient Roman reliefs unearthed from the then rediscovered Domus Aurea of Nero; and finally, both Giovan Francesco Penni ("il Fattore") and the Florentine sculptor Baccio Bandinelli worked there too. Aside from the Raphael loggia, the villa's greatest artistic element is the salone painted by Giulio Romano, with its magnificent vaulted ceiling.

In 1527, during the Sack of Rome, parts of the structure were pillaged and suffered from fire. Some sections were rebuilt, but the villa was never completed. It is not entirely clear how much of the layout and decoration can be attributed to any one of the artists involved.

The Villa Madama was one of the first of the revived Roman type of suburban villas designed for parties and entertainment built in 16th century Rome, and it was consciously conceived to rival descriptions of the villas of Antiquity, like Pliny's famous description of his own.

It had a courtyard with a monumental flight of steps, a circular court around which formal gardens were arranged, an open-air theater excavated in the hillside, a hippodrome below, and a terraced garden with views of the Tiber river.

In the garden facing the loggia, the Elephant Fountain, designed by Giovanni da Udine, commemorates the Indian elephant "Annone", brought to Rome by a Portuguese ambassador for the consecration of Leo X in 1514.