Villa Leopardi Dittajuti

The Villa, built by the architect Leopardi – Dittajuti, is located in an area near via Nomentana, about two kilometers from Porta Pia, and is an example of a late nineteenth-century residence, the result of the transformation of an agricultural area into a "garden of delights". The villa includes four buildings, the most important of which is the main casino. The two smaller buildings house the Municipal Library and the senior citizens' centre of the second municipality.

The area, destined since the Middle Ages for agricultural and productive activities, hosted, for almost the entire 19th century, only a few buildings which did not reveal any residential character. The first news of the possession of the area by the Leopardi Dittajuti counts dates back to 1886, members of the wealthy landed nobility of the Marche related to the great poet of Recanati and linked, by family tradition, to viticulture and winemaking. Currently the main building, built in neo-medieval style in accordance with the architectural dictates of the time, is closed waiting for the planned restoration works to begin. The façades, especially the main one, are enlivened by a profusion of decorative elements, frames, arches, columns, balustrades and stuccos according to the eclectic taste of the time.

The garden is today characterized by the presence of holm oaks, pines, laurels and also by some plant essences considered invasive such as ailanthus and black locust, which in the past were considered valuable because they were of exotic origin. The construction of the manor house was completed at the time with the arrangement of a small garden, with winding paths and irregular flowerbeds, which has now disappeared, while the park had a wooded appearance, in which conifers and holm oaks prevailed. What survives today of that arrangement are a small concrete fountain near the building, in neo-Gothic style, and the cast iron and wrought iron access gates. Inside the area there is the route of the Vergine Aqueduct and, underground, the catacombs of the Major Cemetery. The whole area is protected by a modern fence.

In 1975 the complex was expropriated by the Municipality of Rome and used as a public park, while the main building was used, until 2000, as the seat of district offices, radically changing its intended use.

Photo credits: Capitoline Superintendency