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Renaissance Art and Artist Trip to Tivoli, Italy
The town of Tivoli, situated about twenty miles west of Rome, has been a place of summer retreat in Italy since antiquity. The Roman Emperior Hadrian built a villa there in the early second-century, graced by fish-ponds, gardens, baths and pools. The massive architectural ruins of the villa have attracted visitors for centuries. During the mid sixteenth-century, the antiquarian Pirro Ligorio began excavations at the site, pioneering the modern science of archaeology. Ligorio was also architect to the prideful Cardinal Ippolito d'Este, then governor of Tivoli . Pillaging Hadrian's villa of its best ancient statuary and marbles, Cardinal Ippolito built Villa d'Este, unrivalled in the splendor of its Renaissance water garden. Today, both architectural wonders can be visited by the traveler in a day trip from Rome, providing respite still from the press of urban life in Italy.
Villa d'Este
Everywhere at Villa d'Este is heard the sound of water, the rush and abundance of falls. The water garden is built on two steep slopes that descend from the villa residence above to a large, flat terrace below. To feed the fountains, water was diverted from a natural cascade of the Aniene River in Tivoli to disgorge into the Oval Fountain, located at the easternmost point in the garden. The villa, then, is an elaborate conceit which celebrates Cardinal Ippolito's harnessing of the forces of nature for his sensual pleasures. Leveling even a nearby church and hospital to clear enough land for his project, this arrogant governor was none too popular with the citizens of Tivoli, who brought a series of lawsuits against him to block construction of the garden.
The great central fountain is known as the Fountain of the Dragons. It is decorative, but it also tells a story, much as would a painting of this same period. Four winged dragons spit water instead of fire, and these four are a reference to the dragon who guarded the mythical Garden of the Hesperides. One of the Labors of Hercules was to retrieve from the Garden of the Hesperides golden apples which grew on a tree guarded by a great dragon who never slept. In the central niche of the fountain, perched behind the moss-covered dragons, once stood a statue of Hercules. A visual metaphor was thereby established between this garden, Villa d'Este, and the mythical Garden of the Hesperides, with its golden fruit worthy of the gods.
Even more, it was customary for noble families of this period to claim descent from mythical forbears. Cardinal Ippolito's family, the Este, claimed they shared blood with none other than Hercules himself. His presence in the garden, therefore, imbued the landscape with the (wished-for!) spirit of the cardinal's heroic ancestors.
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