on a grey day in spring about 22 deg, great weather for the sites and there are still not to many tourist.
Went to Benito Mussolini "acquired" villa near Marina & Daniela place. He was not one of the good guys but that was the war era and with the help of Marina we had an Italian history lesson.
Inside one of the opulently decorated rooms marble and mosaic tile everywhere
The mosaic floor tiles where just so small and fine, only 1mm x 2mm so it looked like they were just black painted lines until you got down on all fours for a closer look.
See the small tiles
One of the bedrooms of the original owner who was the real owner until he was convince that the villa was not his anymore.
The original furniture reinstated from army storage after the war and put back into the house in the 1990 when the renovation were complete and turned into a museum.
It would have been like sleeping under a fabric canopy the ceiling all hand painted to look so soft and romantic fit for a Count and not Mussolini, in saying that Mussolini did have a few wife's and several mistresses so could have very well entertained under the canopy in that bed!!.
Villa Torlonia is a villa and surrounding gardens in Rome, Italy, formerly belonging to the Torlonia family.
It was designed by the Neoclassical architect Giuseppe Valadier. Construction began in 1806 for the banker Giovanni Torlonia (1756–1829) and was not finished by his son Alessandro (1800–1880).
Mussolini rented it from the Torlonia for one lira a year to use as his state residence from the 1920s onwards. It was abandoned after 1945, and allowed to decay in the following decades, but recent restoration work has allowed it to be opened to the public as a museum owned and operated by Rome's municipality.
Between 1802 and 1806 Valadier turned the main building into a palace, and transformed other buildings. He also laid out the park with symmetrical avenues around the palace. Numerous works of classical art, many of which were sculptures, were purchased to furnish the palace. Following the death of Giovanni, Alessandro commissioned the painter and architect Giovan Battisti Caretti in 1832 to further develop the property. In addition to expanding the buildings, Caretti constructed several buildings in the park. These included the False Ruins, the Temple of Saturn, and the Tribuna con Fontana.
To plan and carry out other works Alessandro employed Quintiliano Raimondi for the theatre and orangerie (today known as the “Lemon-house”), and Giuseppe Jappelli, who was in charge of the entire south section of the grounds, which he transformed with avenues, small lakes, exotic plants and unusual buildings. These included the Swiss Hut (later rebuilt as the Casina delle Civette), the Conservatory, the Tower and Moorish Grotto, and the Tournament Field. The project culminated in 1842 with the erection of two pink granite obelisks that commemorated Alessandro’s parents.
In 1919 a large underground 3rd- and 4th-century Jewish catacomb was discovered in the north-west area of the grounds. In 1925 the Villa was given to Mussolini as a residence, where he remained until 1943, with few changes to the aboveground structures.
Underground, an air-raid shelter was first constructed in the garden of the villa, and then, in a second stage of building, a much larger and more complex airtight bunker was constructed under the villa itself, with the intention of resisting both aerial bombardment and chemical warfare.[1]
In June 1944 the property was all occupied by the Allied High Command which remained there until 1947. The Villa was bought by the Municipality of Rome in 1977 and a year later it was opened to the public, but with many of the buildings in a run-down state. Restoration was initiated in the 1990s, and has been completed with the inclusion of the Theatre and the exception of the Moorish Conservatory (Serra Moresca). The landscaped grounds are in the English 'picturesque' style.
Another beautiful attraction!
adding to the already amazing architecture.
