The Villa Farnesina by Baldassare Peruzzi is one of the most important buildings of the 1500s. …. it was the first suburban villa …. one must imagine the villa standing alone on the banks of the Tiber with no other buildings surrounding it ….

.....The facade facing towards Rome is stripped down save the elaborate cornice abounding with cherubs dancing between garlands-draped candelabra …. whereas …. the spectacular garden facade is five bays with an open loggia (now enclosed). The loggia functioned to link the interior to the outdoor garden …. the loggia, itself, …. painted by Raphael (1517–1518) …. simulates a grandiose garden pergola or arbor open through its illusionistic, foliated architecture to …. an illusionistic blue sky beyond …. the painted, suspended tapestries …. contain the crowning events …. the bacchanalian feast of the Gods and the marriage of Psyche ….

Apollo and Daphne

Page 63–64 (top). First Edition

EXCERPT

The sculpture represents Daphne metamorphosing into a tree to protect herself from Apollo's advances of love. …. Daphne’s fingertips and hair are transforming into leaves …. her ankles and feet becoming the roots and trunk of a tree …. this sculpture makes one realize the capability of stone to become imbued with life …. marble becomes ‘flesh' ….

Madonna with the Infant Christ and Saint John the Baptist

Page 44, First Edition

EXCERPT

The color palette and hallucinatory light …. are staggering. The composition …. seems transformed by a visionary light, … the icy pinks, golds and greens radiate. Fingers and limbs are elongated; drapery is faceted, edgy …. prismatic ….

EXCERPT

The Nymphaeum is located off Via Appia Pignatelli, which is connected to the Appian Way .… exits Rome from the Porta San Sebastiano until the second kilometer. The road, here, bifurcates .… follow the left fork which is Via Appia Pignatelli. Keep your eyes peeled …. you will see a small signpost which says Sant'Urbano .... Turn left and follow the dirt road until you can go no farther …. at the end is a gate to a villa …. walk to the right of the gate down a path …. follow the descending path and always bear left .… at some point …. after giving up hope …. you will hear the faint sound of water …. you will finally emerge into the semi-ruinous nymphaeum of Egeria.*  

Nymphaeum is another word for fountain, but dedicated to a nymph or nymphs, and nymphaea functioned as cooling retreats from the hot summer sun …. the room was barrel vaulted (now, semi-collapsed), and a giant niche carved into the hillside was and still is the focus of the room …. the water issues forth from the niche and flows around a male statue (the representation of the nymph Egeria is long since gone) …. the water spills and courses into a trough which is surrounded the central space of the fountain room .… as if on an island. Two long walls have vestiges of niches, which must have displayed sculptures spewing water. The room opened to the countryside .… the sound of water …. would certainly have made the fountain room …. alluring .… and a cooling precinct.

The Nymphaeum …. was built by Herodes Atticus (second century CE). He built it …. on a piece of his wife’s, Annia Regilla, …. property. The property was designated as the Triopium …. the park and its architectural follies were constructed by Herodes as tokens of love …. aside from the Nymphaeum, the park included a tempietto …. an exotic pavilion …. supported by caryatids ….

Judith DiMaio is a widely-published author of essays on aspects of art and architecture—her essays have been included in the pocket guides, ‘City Secrets: The Essential Insider's Guide’ specifically the volumes on Rome; Paris; and Florence and Venice. Series editor: Robert Kahn.

Click on the three city names, below, or click on the book covers to the right, to read excerpts from the respective travel guide.

.… And if this is not enough for one building, just go upstairs and discover Peruzzi’s Sala delle Prospettive, a total illusion …. the four walls …. are painted to simulate the inside of an elevated temple .… with simulated marble columns framing views to the city of Rome and the countryside ….

The Marble Faun

A Romance Novel, Chapter I: Miriam, Hilda, Kenyon, Donatello

A walk through the pages of the Marble Faun: Part I

EXCERPT

…. I would have in hand a copy of the Marble Faun, a romance novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne .… Begin your walk at the bottom of the stepped ramp which leads up to the Capitoline Hill …. go into the Museo Capitolino ….. climb the staircase and proceed to the room straight ahead which is the Sala of the Dying Gaul (Sala Galata Morente) ….. open the Marble Faun and read the first paragraph in which Hawthorne describes this …. ”warrior in his death swoon” …. then proceed to the window overlooking the Roman Forum …. read the next paragraph; …. He writes …. "from this saloon we may see the Foundation of Rome, the Arch, the Forum, the domes of Christian churches, to the sweep of the Coliseum beyond." …. "So much history" he writes,"heaped into the intervening space,” The moment, the read and the realization that we are seeing exactly what Hawthorne's four protagonists saw is spellbinding …. Rome is, indeed, eternal.

The Alternative Walk, Part II

EXCERPT

Read the Marble Faun in its entirety …. proceed into the great middle Salone (“Saloon”) of the Museo Capitolino in search of the Marble Faun of Hawthorne …. there are many marble fauns in the Salone but read closely and you will find this specific creature in marble, or in the words of Hawthorne …. "Neither man nor animal, yet no monster, but a being in whom both races meet on friendly ground …. all the genial characteristics of creatures that dwell in the woods …. will seem mingled and kneaded into one substance, along with the kindred qualities in the human soul ….”

There are many other places one could go to follow the journey of Hawthorne’s four individuals …. the Church of the Cappuccini (Santa Maria della Concezione) and discover Guido Reni's altarpiece painting …. the foursome is very excited by the painting which will play a significant role in the novel's plot …. then proceed to the Tarpeian Rock (Rupe Tarpea), an outcropping, reached by a narrow path on the slope of the Capitoline Hill …. a perfect setting for Hawthorne's otherworldly and somewhat sinister foursome …. many a traitor to the Roman Republic leapt to his death from this bare cliffside …. and, it is here that one of Hawthorne's foursome meets a tragic death …. This rock captured the imagination of Virgil …. and John Milton referenced it in Paradise Regained.

A perfect end to your peregrinations through the Marble Faun and Rome would be to visit where Hilda lived, Hilda's Tower (Chapter XXXVI) …. a fictitious name given by Hawthorne. In actuality it is a Medieval tower named Torre della Scimmia [Monkey Tower] …. The tower is surmounted by a lamp …. There is a legend …. the lamp has burned since Medieval times and it burns to this day …. its continued burning ensures that the tower will stand forever. Hilda, in the novel, was the keeper of this eternal light and tower which stands on an uncomfortably paved, narrow and twisting street. Hawthorne begins this chapter with …. “When one has once known Rome, and left her where she lies, like a long decaying corpse, retaining  traces of the noble shape it once was, but with accumulated dust overspreading all its admirable features …. left her in utter weariness, no doubt, of her narrow, crooked …. streets …. when we have left Rome in such a mood as this, we are astonished to discover that our heartstrings have mysteriously attached themselves to the Eternal City and are drawing us hitherward again..."

(Chapter XXXVI; Hilda's Tower)