06 - Villa Imperiale

When Thomas Jackson arrives at Villa Imperiale, the building appears much less attractive than it later became after the restoration carried out by the Castelbarco Albani family, but he likes it a lot even so.

The charm of the residence had always been very strong if even the author Ludovico Agostini imagines spending eleven days of summer village with six friends in the Pesaro villas in Soria and in particular in the Villa Imperiale. Thus was born the giornate soriane, written between 1572 and 1574: a story of a courtly society, cheerful and carefree, dedicated to pleasures and entertainment, far from the heat of the city and the nagging problems of social life.

From the introduction of the modern edition of the manuscript (Ms. 191):

"The most prestigious of the villas is the Imperiale, built in 1464 by Alessandro Sforza. Frescoed by famous artists and superbly furnished, it was then passed to the Della Rovere family who, through gardens, loggias, and cypress-lined avenues, had connected it with the other ducal villa, the "Vedetta", located on the top of the hill, from which it dominated the entire coast...... The first day takes place in the vast garden of the Imperiale, where the crown prince Francesco Maria converses with the merry company, interrupted by the mafrigals of his choirmaster Paolo Animuccia..... "

Jackson notes:

" Like most Italian buildings of that kind, the Imperiale does not present any particular attractions on the outside. You find yourself in front of a square mass that looks like a barracks, with here and there - but not always - a tower and simple walls of whitewashed bricks and full of holes that were used for scaffolding. Yet these buildings seem to fit in perfectly with their surroundings and no other construction would harmonize so well with the landscape. The old palace is easily distinguished from the new one… The great tower of Genga is joined to the old palace which we entered through an arch with the Sforza coat of arms…

Inside there is a small courtyard surrounded by a pretty loggia and, crowded around a marble well, in one corner, there were the farmers who washed their legs and feet from the grapes they had pressed. The Imperiale is in fact today a farm in which only a few furnished rooms are reserved for when the owner, Prince Albani of Milan, comes to visit his lands. The only people who lived there were the farmer and his wife, a pretty peasant girl, the latter, who knew how to do the honors with grace.

The ground floor of the old palace is completely bare and used only for agricultural purposes, but there are still some beautiful fireplaces left. A simple staircase leads to the first floor, where, in the rooms around the courtyard, are the murals…

A bridge leads to the new palace built by Genga for the Duchess Leonora…

The new palace is completely dismantled and, although it has a roof, it is not habitable since the doors have also been removed. Being built on the slope of the hill, the upper floor opens at the end of the wing at the level of a charming hanging garden that forms the fourth side of the new quadrangular structure. It was full of wild flowers that grew luxuriantly without order. Our guide offered a bunch of them “to the lady”. A nice walk down a shady and muddy path brought us back with a shorter route to the city gate”.