Villa Torlonia (Rome)
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- For other villas of this name, see Villa Torlonia.
Villa Torlonia is a villa in Rome, Italy, belonging to the Torlonia family. It is entered from via Nomentana.
It was designed by the neo-Classic architect Giuseppe Valadier. Construction began in 1806 for the banker Giovanni Torlonia and finished by his son Alessandro.
Disused for a time, Mussolini rented it from the Torlonia for one lira a year to use as his state residence from the 1920s onwards. It was abandoned after 1945, and allowed to decay in the following decades, but recent restoration work has allowed it to be opened to the public. Part of the Torlonia family collection of classical sculpture is now housed at the villa.
Surrounding the villa are landscaped grounds in the English 'picturesque' style, which became a public park in 1978. In these gardens are to be found 3rd and 4th century Jewish catacombs and thirteen garden pavilions representing exotic parts of the world (including a kiosk in the Moorish Revival taste). An air-raid shelter was built into these catacombs by Prince Torlonia and Mussolini.
