Villa Farnesina

A must for fans of Renaissance art, this gorgeous 16th-century villa features some awe-inspiring frescoes by Sebastiano del Piombo, Raphael and the villa’s original architect, Baldassare Peruzzi. Peruzzi was commissioned to build the villa by the powerful banker Agostino Chigi but in 1577 bankruptcy forced the Chigis to sell it to the Farnese family, after whom it is named. The most famous frescoes are in the Loggia of Cupid and Psyche on the ground floor. Although they are generally attributed to Raphael, the great man did little more than design the frescoes for his assistants to paint. Apparently he was so besotted with his mistress, who worked in a nearby bakery, that he couldn’t concentrate on his work. He did, however, find time to paint the Trionfo di Galatea (Triumph of Galatea) in the room of the same name. On the 1st floor, Peruzzi’s dazzling frescoes in the Salone delle Prospettive are a superb illusionary perspective of a colonnade and panorama of 16th-century Rome.