Villa Farnesina

Agostino Chigi commissioned his fellow Sienese Baldassare Peruzzi to build this villa.

All the great artists (except Michelangelo) working in Rome c. 1510-20 to work on his villa, one of the first buildings since antiquity to be designed solely for pleasure.  Chigi was famed for the lavish parties he held here; after dinner he used to throw his gold plate into the Tiber (his servants had secretly laid nets and fished them out).

The most beautiful frescoes downstairs are by Raphael, who followed his Galatea with his delightful Loggia of Psyche, a wonderfully decorative and erotic love story set within a trompe l'oeil pergola. It was probably commissioned to celebrate Chigi's marriage to his mistress, with Pope Leo X officiating.

Upstairs, there are more frescoes by Peruzzi himself and scenes by Il Sodoma of the Marriage of Alexander and Roxane, a fitting subject for Chigi's bedchamber.