The Villa of Giulio II

The national Etruscan Museum is situated from its birth in Villa Giulia, a classic example of atria culture wanted by the Pope Giulio II on the area of the Vigna Vecchia in 1551-1555. To the construction collaborated Michelangelo, the Vasari and Vignola, while the decoration must be a school of painters, among which the Zuccari brothers and perhaps Giovanni from Udine.

The villa formed by a nuclear at one floor, along the prospected axes in which it began to dominate the direct line where as internal assumes a semicircle form that atria opens the portico that surrounds the main courtyard ending in the complex of the ninfeo on the bottom, where results the passage from the direct line Renaissance of that the curve anticipates the baroque.

From the atria it opens onto two rooms placed on its sides, the rooms of Banquets (in the faces, scenes painted are those of a Baccanale and The virtue which grabs fortune by the hair, representation of nymphs). Also the door is semi circle has a face painted with the aspect of a luxury and on the walls are represented grotesque and mythological characters.

The far façade in the Gallery projected by the Ammannati. Over the second courtyard, two ramps go down to the Ninfeo, scenographic comprised on three levels with the galleries in two upper orders. Below to show this space small and secret is the Fountain of the water virgin (1552) wealth complex by Vasari in co-operation with the Ammannati (plumbing establishment attributed to Vignola) and ornate by caryatids and refigure the Arno and Tiber rivers.