If you live in the White House, you can stay at Villa Madama

For the Record—This post mistakenly says that President Bush stayed at the Villa Madama during his recent visit to Rome. The president dined and met with the press at the villa, but stayed with the U.S. Ambassador to Italy, according to Carlton Carroll of the White House Press Office.

Susan Spano’s Postcards From Rome

When President Bush was in Rome recently, he stayed at the Villa Madama.

It’s not a hotel, so don’t try to make a reservation. It’s an Italian government guesthouse north of the Vatican.

Built around 1520, the villa was designed by Raphael for Giulio di Giuliano de’ Medici, who became Pope Clement VII, to accommodate important visitors to the Holy See. But only part of the building was completed; visitors entered from a hemicycle — think a cantaloupe cut in half– on the forested hillside of Monte Mario, topped by the Astronomical Observatory of Rome.

The domed great hall is a piece of High Roman Renaissance sudden enlightenment — powerful, airy, elegant. Raphael died before the villa was completed, so a team of his followers took over, including architect Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, fresco artists Giulio Romano and Baldassare Peruzzi and Giovanni da Udine, who gave the villa its delicate, detailed stucco plastering.

The garden beyond is a maze of boxwood hedges, overlooking a fish pond. Tucked into the hillside is a fountain that features one of ancient Rome’s rare and wonderful sculpted elephants.

To see the villa, I hooked up with a group of Yale University architecture students whose visit had been specially arranged, the only way to tour the Villa Madama unless you’re George W. Bush. Now I know why people run for president.

– Susan Spano, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

[Photo: Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, right, and U.S. President George W. Bush answer journalists' questions during a joint news conference at Rome's Villa Madama on June 12, 2008. By Pier Paolo Cito / Associated Press]

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This entry was posted on Sunday, June 22, 2008 at 7:00 am by Susan Spano and is filed under Celebrity, Europe, Italy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.