Pope Paul V Borghese chose this Villa as the centrepiece of a project that was hugely ambitious in its monumentality, extension and attractiveness, designed to compete in terms of grandeur with Villa Aldobrandini, which occupied the most central and visible position in the natural amphitheatre of the Tuscolano hills.
The name Mondragone refers to the dragon on Pope Gregory XIII Boncompagni’s coat of arms, to whom the owner, Cardinal Marco Sittico Altemps, dedicated the villa. It had initially been built by Martino Longhi the Elder in the last quarter of the sixteenth century, as a sumptuous summer residence for the Pope. After he purchased it in 1613, Cardinal Scipione Borghese had the building enlarged and adapted to Baroque taste, turning it into the headquarters of what was known as the “Stato Borghesiano”. The residence was later supplemented by purchases of Villa Vecchia and Villa Taverna Borghese. The complex was the Borghese family’s summer residence: Mondragone hosted the Pope and his court, Cardinal Scipione stayed at the Villa Taverna, and their servants were billeted at Villa Vecchia. The three buildings were set in a vast park of formal gardens, tilled fields and woodland. The already-impressive Mondragone residence was enlarged to resemble a royal palace. Architect Giovanni Vasanzio added many original decor features and arrangements, including a majestic “Water Theatre” housed in an exedra with five niches, complete with scenographic and illusionistic effects. The walls were covered with espaliers of citrus plants, while the beds in the secret garden showcased fine and rare flowers, particularly bulbous plants. The building’s downhill-facing facade, especially imposing on the sloping plot, overlooked a terraced open space embellished with a fountain on a high base. The location offered fine views over the long cypress-tree-lined driveway below, and of course the surrounding countryside.
Highlights
The Secret Garden Portico
Conceived as a loggia with five arches in serliana form, couplets engraved on marble slabs commissioned by Paul V exalted the pleasure of whiling away the hours in the Mondragone garden – comparing it with Hesperides’s garden – in direct contact with nature, imbuing it with particular significance.
The "Teatro delle acque"
Very little remains today of the water theatre’s original magnificence, which we know of not just from prints of the day, but also from the description cultured French traveller Jacques-François Deseine penned in 1713: “The concavities of the niches host beautiful statues, jets of water gushing from all sides, while in the middle a pinwheel fills the ears with a frightening noise that mimics thunder, rain and hail.”
The Portale delle Armi
This monumental gateway, attributed to Girolamo Rainaldi, was built in 1620 as the sole access from Frascati to the Borgheses’ trio of villas. The large rusticated arch with tympanums and pinnacles is surmounted by an Attic bearing the papal coat of arms on the front and the cardinal’s coat of arms on the back, accompanied by the Borghese’s winged dragons, which had replaced those of the Boncompagni family.