From 20 May 2010 the Villa Altieri it is a palace with a municipal park. In April 2017, the villa was registered in the Lazio Historic Houses Network.
The Park of Villa Altieri is a garden that completes the connotation of the patrician villa of the stately home of the homonymous palace, according to the stylistic canons of the 16th century.
Indeed, the residence would be inconceivable without its "green entrance", signifying the artifice of man who surpasses nature itself. Villa and Palazzo therefore constitute a unique landscape, a typical expression of sixteenth-century mannerism.
The naturalistic and historical-cultural value of the park is remarkable, surrounded by the tuff walls and characterized inside by the majestic tall trees. Interesting is the path that winds along tree-lined avenues, at the intersections of which there is a large circular stone fountain, the Casina di Caccia dating back to the eighteenth century, which acts as a perspective backdrop along the main avenue called the Perspective and the remains of a garden Italian style.
In the period of the Altieri (1671-1970), the park undergoes a transformation. It is equipped in the form of a barco, ie a hunting reserve, offering play areas for owners and guests. The result is a natural area with large areas of countryside within it (meadows and pastures), natural valleys and woods. In the rearrangement, the Altieri were probably inspired by the taste of the time, also inserting parterres of flower beds on the front facing the palace according to the canons of the Italian garden.
There is also a track for the greyhound race, which at the beginning of the 1900s attracted nobles and visitors who love these shows, including the poet Gabriele D'Annunzio.
Over the years, the Santacroce, Orsini and Altieri families have succeeded in the ownership and management of the park. Currently the Villa is owned by the municipality and has been the subject of a restoration concerning the central avenue, the circular fountain and the hunting lodge.
Giorgio II Santacroce had already foreseen the park annexed to the palace and the works for its arrangement began in 1582 and continued for a long time. The original project, entrusted to the architect Troiano Schiratti, was to be carried out in an area of ​​17 hectares for the creation of a hunting park; during the construction, the current arrangement was opted for, covering an area of ​​8 hectares enclosed by walls.
The villa is accessed by a large portal surmounted by the coat of arms of the Altieri family; the members of the noble family, on the other hand, accessed directly from the palace via a small passage made up of three arches. The peculiarity of this garden lies in the fact that it does not follow the architectural landscape canons of the mannerism of the Italian garden then in vogue but thanks to the creation of large areas of countryside with the presence of trees such as yews and cedars of Lebanon and avenues lined with holm oaks e elmi anticipates the shape of the English garden by about two centuries.
Villa Altieri palace and municipal park
Address: 01010
Phone: +39 0699837144
Site:
https://comune.orioloromano.vt.it/notizie/67084/villa-altieriLocation inserted by
Laura Lucibello