Villa del casale di San Pio V

The farmhouse was built in a place known as "della tedesca", just outside Largo dei Cavalleggieri, to become the residence of Pope Pius V Ghislieri, who went to live there before 1567.
The complex consists of a main building and a garden, both surrounded by a high wall that opens onto the street in a massive rusticated arch, at the sides of which are the guardhouse and a small church.
The project has been referred to Nanni di Baccio Biglio, the Florentine Giovanni Lippi, who had already designed the Salviati Palace at the Lungara and Villa Medici at the Pincio in Rome.
The building, an imposing square block, appears severe in its sober decoration composed of simple window frames, without mouldings, similar to the stringcourses, which horizontally mark out the structure. It reflects the tough personality of a pope who, close to Carlo Borromeo, promoted the return of the Church to the rigour of customs and virtue.
Inside there is a courtyard, on three sides of which are the rooms of the building and the fourth element of which is the façade. The ground floor is punctuated by Doric pilaster strips interspersing arches, three of which were originally open on the long sides. Above a heavy string-course cornice, plain framed windows open in correspondence with the arches below. The complex was extended by the addition of a garden in front and a side wing on the left.
In 1610 the house was purchased by the monks of S. Paolo, then it became the property of Chigi. In the inventories between 1770 and 1793 it is referred to as "Villa di Cataletto, e vigna unita detta di Massinagni".
The complex was later sold to Queen Margherita of Savoy to become the Hospice for the Blind.