Balthus at the Villa Medici

Founded in 1666 under Louis, XIV, the Academy of France in Rome is the oldest and most important institution of its kind in Italy. After having occupied several sites, it was established in 1803 under Napoleon in the marvelous setting that is still its headquarters and contributes so much to its renown: the Villa Medici. To the art lover privileged to live in it for several years while undertaking the responsibilities of its direction, nothing is more agreeable than to show its beauties on the spot to visitors, but nothing is more difficult than to evoke these same beauties in a few lines for faraway readers. The photographs taken are deliberately concentrated on some of the rather discreet aspects of the interior to the exclusion of the highly decorated apartments, but they reveal even better the charm and the purity of its ambience.

The Villa Medici forms with its annexes and protected gardens an exceptional historic ensemble inseparable from its site. It rises in fact on the Pincian Hill, a favorite promenade from which one discovers the best views of Rome and which in ancient times was called the hill of gardens. The most famous gardens then were those of Lucullus, who brought back from his Asian campaigns a feeling for luxury and refinement. His villa had its back to the hill right in the space between the Villa Medici and the neighboring convent of Trinita dei Monti. Excavations have uncovered vestiges of it and clarified its layout.

After a long period of abandon linked to the decline of Rome the hill of gardens came to life again at the end of the fifteenth century with the installation of monasteries for the religious orders and rustic houses or casinos for dignitaries of the Church. With its severe palace facade overhanging Rome, its airy orchestration above the gardens, its silhouette inscribed in the panorama of the hills, the Villa Medici is a major example of the Italian villas of humanist conception devoted to entertainment, to aesthetic enjoyment, to meditation. Itself a vast cabinet d'amateur, it also had its studiolo, its chapel, its library, its secret enclosures, its pavilions to dream in, where today are scattered the ateliers of the fellows, winners of the Grand Prix de Rome. The garden with its two paths of approach invites the kind of contemplative promenade inspired by a place of pilgrimage, with pauses to look carefully at the various loggias, two of which were painted by Velazquez in views of Rome now in the Prado. Velazquez is one among the illustrious guests popes, sovereigns, princes and dignitaries, scholars and poets, artists and musicians who haunt these grounds overflowing with history and legend.

The Villa Medici has kept together practically all of its primary structures, but they were progressively altered during a century and a half by administrative undertakings, several military occupations, and the ostentation of bourgeois taste. In 1961 Andre Malraux, Minister of Culture, had named as director his friend the painter Balthus, who fulfilled his mission over the course of sixteen years with singular prestige and with results that cannot be too much appreciated. His complete restoration of the villa (and later of the gardens), which has served as a model for other Roman buildings, notably the Farnese Palace, is in itself one of his most perfect works and has had a significant and positive effect on both him and on his art. The success is owing to the sureness of his artistic gifts, to his profound knowledge of Italy, where in adolescence he learned to paint in front of the sanctuaries of Florence, Siena, and Arezzo; to his infallible sensitivity, of which he has given other proofs, toward high places and their particular genius. He knew how to restore to each room its proportions and harmony, and with the aid of old Italian artisans still skilled in the secrets of their trade, to achieve the appropriate colors for the walls, in a manner that is at once matte and vibrant, simple and strong, polished on the last coat by rubbing with bottle shards. If these walls with their monastic bareness resemble the backgrounds of Balthus's paintings, it is because the latter come from the same source and are directed toward the same anonymous grandeur.

All the paving of the ground floor was remade in terra-cotta tiles according to ancient practice. The former carriage rooms were cleaned out and transformed into magnificent halls that regularly welcome exhibits of the fellows' work at the end of their residence, and, twice a year, ex positions of various types, conceived according to places with an Italian resonance, which are attended like important events and followed by a large public.

The reform of 1971 has modified the recruiting conditions and the statutes of the Villa Medici, which is no longer a dependency of the Institute de France but of an administrative council under the direction of the Ministry of Culture. Prix de Rome candidates are no longer admitted by academic competition but chosen by a double jury on the basis of aptitude. To the traditional disciplines-painting, sculpture, engraving, architecture, musical composition have been added literature, movies, photography, as well as a section of art history and of restoration of works of art. All the activities corresponding to these diverse domains have been amplified, and music has notably undergone considerable expansion. A succession of important concerts retransmitted to France and Italy have been produced in the Villa Medici gardens. These exceptional manifestations enhance without betraying it the peace of a privileged place for reflection and creation, out of the tumult of cities and the pressures of fashion, looking down on the blazing domes of Rome and their universal glory.