Architectural Design
The Villa Lante is formed by two casini (houses), nearly identical but built by different owners in a period separated by 30 years. Each square building has a ground floor of rusticated arcades or loggias which support a piano nobile above. Each facade on this floor has just three windows, alternating round or pointed pediments. Each window is divided by pilasters in pairs. An upper floor is merely hinted at by small rectangular, mezzanine type, windows above those of the piano nobile. Each casino is then crowned by a tower or lantern in the summit of the pantiled roof. These elaborate square lanterns too have pilasters, and windows both real and blind.
Each of these casini, in their severe Mannerist style, was built by a different unrelated owner. Villa Lante was first commissioned by Cardinal Gianfrancesco Gambara who gives his surname to the first casino.
It appears that work commenced in 1566 on the right hand (as one enters) casino. It is thought Gambara commissioned Vignola to design the project (the villa is only attributed to Vignola), and begin the work and the design of the gardens for which the villa was to become justly famous. The first casino and upper garden were quickly completed, but work was then suspended for the remainder of Gambara's lifetime.
Following the death of Gambara in 1587, he was succeeded as Apostolic Administrator of Viterbo, by the 17-year-old nephew of Pope Sixtus V, Cardinal Alessandro Peretti di Montalto. It was this mere youth who completed the project at Bagnaia and built the second casino. The two casini differ most in their frescoes: frescoes of landscapes in the Gambara and in the Montalto frescoes by a later artist in a more classical style. In the Gambara Casino the vaulted frescoed loggias are a riot of colour highlighting the architectural detail, while in the Montalto Casino the principal reception room is a combination of fresco and plaster sculpture, almost trompe l'oeil.
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