Villa Farnesina on via della Lungara in Trastevere is one of the noblest and most harmonious achievements of the Italian Renaissance, built as the residence of the wealthy Sienese banker Agostino Chigi to a design by architect Baldassarre Peruzzi between 1505 and 1520. It was frescoed according to a rich iconographic programme aimed at celebrating the patron and entrusted to the greatest artists of the period, including Peruzzi himself, Sebastiano del Piombo, Sodoma and Raphael Sanzio, who with his school created the splendid Loggia of Cupid and Psyche and the fresco of the nymph Galatea. Memorable were the banquets organised by Chigi, during which he welcomed the most distinguished personalities of his time, including poets, princes, cardinals and the pontiff himself.
After experiencing the height of its splendour during the life of the Sienese banker, the villa was purchased in 1590 by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, hence the name Farnesina. In 1735, the villa passed with Elisabeth Farnese’s inheritance to Charles IV Bourbon, until Francis II granted it in emphyteusis for 99 years to the Spanish ambassador to Naples, Salvador Bermudez de Castro, Duke of Ripalta.
In 1927, Villa Farnesina was purchased by the Italian State as the seat of the Accademia d’Italia, while since 1944 it has been the representative seat of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, located in the Palazzo Corsini in front of it.
