Villa d'Este

About this place

The Villa d'Este is a 16th-century villa in Tivoli, near Rome. It is a masterpiece of Italian architecture and garden design, famous for its terraced hillside Italian Renaissance garden and the ingenuity of its architectural features, it is an incomparable example of a 16th-century Italian garden, which later had a huge influence on landscape design in Europe. It is now an Italian state museum, and is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2001. Notice how the building presents itself to the surrounding streets or landscape, then compare its public and more intimate spaces. This helps explain how architecture expressed the position, resources and ambitions of the people who commissioned it.