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Monday, June 25, 2012

Il Quadrato, Villa Lante, Bagnaia

Speranza



Although the design of Villa Lante is usually ascribed to Vignola, no record exists to confirm the attribution.

The garden and its pavilions were created for Cardinal Gianfancesco Gambara, who was made Apostolic Administrator of Viterbo in 1566.

Work on the Villa Lante seems to have been started almost at once.

Like Caprarola it stands in the region of the Etruscan-haunted Ciminian forests and hills, a fit sitting for the moss-grown river gods, nymphs, lions, and the prancing of Pegasus of this enchanting water-garden.

The Quadrato consists of four parterres, one on each side of an ornate aquatic composition.

Four square basins enclosed by low parapets adorned with urns and obelisks surround a circular fountain reached by balustraded walls between the basins.

The centre of the fountation is a composition of four life-sized boys (entirely classical in feeling, although they are wrongly known as "I Mori") standing back to back with lions between them holding aloft the arms of Cardinal Montalto, the 'mounts' and a star, from the many points of which spring jets of water.

The figures are carved in the stone of the district which, hwere always wet and gleaming, is often taken for bronze.

The fountain is probably the work of Giambologna.

Cardinal Montalto was a newphew of Pope Sixtus V who succeeded to the see of Viterbo on the death of Gambara in 1587.

Montalto completed the work on the Villa Lante, which had come to a halt after the Quadrato and the upper garden had been laid out and one of the twin pavilions had been built.

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