Villa Farnesina

The Villa Farnesina in Rome was built in the early 1500s for Agostino Chigi, a  wealthy banker and patron of Siena. It is considered one of the most noble and harmonious buildings of the Italian Renaissance, a work in which the architectural design and the painted decorations combined  into one great work of art.  The Villa was designed by the architectBaldassarre Peruzziand interiors include elegant frescoes by top masters such asRaphael(The Loggia of Cupid and Psyche and the Galatea), Sebastiano del Piombo,and Giovanni Antonio Bazzi also known as   Sodoma.

At the end of the seventeenth century the villa was bought by the Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, hence the name “Villa Farnesina” to distinguish it from Palazzo Farnese on the other side of the river Tiber. The villa today is the main office for the Accademia dei Lincei.