Villa Malta delle Rose al Pincio

The villa stands on the land where the 'Horti Luculliani' once stood, and the original structure dates back to the 16th century when the Orsini family, owners of the land, built a small palace with a tower. From the Orsini it passed to the Mattei family, until in the early 17th century it passed to the Frati Minimi of the Ss.Trinità dei Monti convent, who added to the pre-existing rustic and civil buildings a simple one-storey casino, called "la Vignola", with a quadrangular belvedere tower and a 15th-century viridarium. In order to increase their income, the friars preferred to rent out the villa, which at that time was called "Giardino del Pino" (Garden of the Pine) because of a very tall pine tree, and so from 1611 it passed to various tenants: Monsignor Poggi, a Cardinal Ludovisi and from 1634 Cardinal Cosimo De Torres, who was granted the right to transform the rent into a life lease. Among the various subtenants of the Marquises De Torres was Queen Maria Cristina Casimira of Poland, who wanted to buy the villa, but the friars refused the offer: for this reason, she had a bridge built over Via Sistina, called the Arco della Regina, later demolished in 1799, so that she could reach the villa from Palazzo Zuccari where she lived. In the first half of the eighteenth century the palace was inhabited by Bailiff de Breteuil, the representative of the Order of Malta in Rome, and was therefore called Villa Malta. After the De Torres family, who maintained the villa until 1764, other tenants took over, including Antonio Parmegiani, and in the second half of the 18th century the villa became a point of support for the German community in Rome, the Circolo Artistico Tedesco (German Artistic Circle). Goethe often visited the villa, Duchess Amalia of Braunscweig lived there and in 1789 Giovanni Goffredo Herder, the theorist of German romanticism, stayed there. Another illustrious guest was Giuseppe Balsamo, Count of Cagliostro, who held some secret meetings here in 1789, until the papal police raided the house and arrested the adventurer, taking him to the Castel S.Angelo prison. In the 19th century, the villa was inhabited by the poetess Federica Brun and by Wilhelm von Humboldt, ambassador to Rome of the King of Prussia, so that it became an intellectual centre, frequented by the painters Camuccini, Koch and Angelica Kauffman and the sculptors Canova and Thorvaldsen. In 1818 the lease was transferred to the Swedish sculptor Nicola Bystrom, who established his studio, restored the building and opened the access to the villa from Via Sistina. In 1827 the villa was leased to King Louis I of Bavaria, so that the villa lost its former vitality as it was only frequented when the king was in Rome. On the death of Louis I in 1868, the royal house retained the emphyteutical ownership of the villa until 1873, when the Bavarian house obtained from the new owners of the estate, the Sisters of the Sacred Heart, the enfranchisement of the property for about 18,000 gold francs. In 1878 the villa was bought by the Russian prince Alexis Bobrinski, great-grandson of Tsarina Catherine II, who completely transformed the villa, giving it a neo-romantic imprint; the tower disappeared, the great hall was decorated with a rich ceiling and a marble fireplace purchased from the Altemps family and the gardens were adorned with magnificent roses, so that the villa was also called Villa delle Rose. In 1907, the villa became the property of Prince Bernard von Bülow, former Chancellor of Germany, who lived there for a long time with his wife, the daughter of Minister Marco Minghetti. After the Second World War, the villa was bought by the Jesuits, who established the editorial office of the magazine "La Civiltà Cattolica" there, carrying out major expansion and adaptation work for the occasion, without altering the style of the building. The grand atrium and entrance staircase were built, as well as the new southern wing for the writers' quarters, and below it the large library with five underground floors. The monumental hall was turned into a chapel, but the floor and wall decorations remained unchanged, while the fireplace was moved to the headquarters of a company in Via Sicilia, where it was placed against a wall of the courtyard and used as a fountain. It should be noted that until a few years ago the villa housed a palm tree that grew from a "date tree" given by Goethe to a friend shortly before the poet left Rome in April 1788; the palm tree planted by King Louis I of Bavaria in 1867 still stands, as confirmed by an inscription in German.