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Description
The present palazzina Vagnuzzi was built by restoring the so-called 'casino del Monte', dating from the 16th century, which had been part of the Villa Poniatowski since the 17th century. The building had already been remodelled in 1810 by Valadier, commissioned by Stanislaus Poniatowski.
The new work, carried out between 1825 and 1844, was entrusted by the new owner and friend of Poniatowski, Luigi Vagnuzzi, to the then very fashionable architect Luigi Canina. Vagnuzzi wanted the building to be refined to become a country villa.
Canina decided to enlarge the building by inserting two loggias on the sides of the first floor, embellished with a Greek motif, and the relative part on the ground floor, and to lower it by one level, thus eliminating the roof-terrace placed by Valadier to crown it. In this way the building appears to be characterised by a marked horizontality, highlighted by the rusticated base and the imposing string-course cornices. The construction tends to become lighter on the upper floors, which open up into the loggias on the sides and two orders of seven windows each, marked by double pilasters.
In front of the rear façade, there is an English garden, in which an "Egyptian room" was built, now in a state of abandonment, decorated like the interior of the building by Angelo Zecchini.
After various changes of ownership, since 1939 the Casina Vagnuzzi has belonged to the City of Rome, which assigned it to the Accademia Filarmonica Romana in 1960, including the remaining park that extends to the slopes of the Monti Parioli.
