Although used to designate any
country residence, especially in Italy and S France, the term villa particularly refers to a type of
pleasure residence with extensive grounds favored by the Romans and richly
developed in Italy in the Renaissance. The Roman villa of the empire is
described in several contemporary literary accounts and particularly by Pliny.
Favored locations were at Tivoli near Rome and along the shores of the Bay of
Naples. The dwelling quarters, consisting of several low buildings, included
recreation facilities and lodgings for the servants. The farmhouse type (villa
rustica) had barns, orchards, and vineyards, and the type used as a
pleasure retreat (villa urbana) had formal gardens adorned with
fountains and sculptures. The luxurious villa of Emperor Hadrian near Tivoli,
of which extensive ruins remain, is said to have covered more than 7 sq mi (18
sq km); many works of art were exhumed there during the Renaissance. In the
late 15th cent. the classic villas, rediscovered along with the rest of the
Roman past, furnished the Renaissance nobles with patterns for pleasure estates
of their own, e.g., the Villa Madama, Rome, designed by Raphael and the many
villas built by Palladio in N Italy. Many of these villas had hillside
locations, which called forth the fullest ingenuity of the garden designers.
Their pictorial compositions blended with the variable elements of nature the
formal qualities of the house, the incidental garden architecture, and the
fountains. Baroque villas displayed the most fanciful variety of garden
frivolities—grotesque sculptures, grottoes lined with rock and shell
decorations, fantastic water displays, and ingenious transitions between
different levels. Isola Bella on Lake Maggiore is a striking example.For
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