The stables of Villa Farnesina

An etching by Carlo Pontani depicting the stables in the garden of the Villa Farnesina, Rome. This print was published by Pontani in "Opere architettoniche di Raffaello Sanzio, incise e dichiarate dall'Architetto Carlo Pontani", published in two volumes in 1841 and 1845. The print is lettered with the title in Italian and a scale. Signed by the printmaker. In the title Pontani refers to Milizia as the source for this print (Francesco Milizia, "Roma. Delle belle arti del disegno. Parte prima: dell'Architettura Civile", 1787, pp.142-143). Annotated on the verso.

The stables, arranged into three naves with a stairway at the back, are known to us only from drawings. Only the pedestalled plinths, the bases of the double pilasters and the lower part of a blind arcade, behind which the stables were placed, are surviving.

Agostino Chigi, a Sienese banker, commissioned the Villa Farnesina from Baldassarre Peruzzi, who designed and erected it c.1506-1510. In the Loggia of Galatea – the garden loggia on the Tiber side of the Villa Farnesina – Baldassarre Peruzzi in c.1510-11 frescoed a sky like the one that would have been seen in 1466 at the hour of Chigi's birth, with stories of gods and heroes, which symbolized constellations, planets, and signs of the zodiac (see Bibliographic References).