Outside the Aurelian walls, to the north and northeast of the city, was once an area of market gardens, olive groves and patrician villas abutting the Via Salaria and Via Nomentana before trailing off into open country. During the Renaissance, these vast tracts of land were appropriated as summer estates for the city’s wealthy, particularly those affiliated in some way to the papal court. One of the most notable of these estates, the Villa Borghese , was the summer playground of the Borghese family and is now a public park, and home to the city’s most significant concentration of museums. Foremost among these are the Galleria Borghese , housing the resplendent art collection of the aristocratic family – a Roman must-see in anyone’s book – and the Villa Giulia , built by Pope Julius III for his summer repose and now the National Etruscan Museum. North of Villa Borghese stretch Rome’s post-Unification residential districts – not of much interest in themselves, except perhaps for Foro Italico , which is worth visiting either to see Roma or Lazio play at its Olympic Stadium, or simply to admire Mussolini’s stylish, of-its-time sports complex.
Villa Borghese And North
February 26, 2008 by admin
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