Villa d'Este
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How it came to be
Cardinal Ippolito II d'Este, second son of Alfonso I, Duke of Ferrara, was made governor of Tivoli for life by the College of Cardinals on 3 December 1549. Wanting a palace to match the post, he had Pirro Ligorio lay out the palace and gardens, using marble and statuary taken from the ruins of Hadrian's Villa nearby. Construction began in July 1560.
From 1563 to 1565 earth was cut away to form terraces and the Aniene River was diverted to feed them. The Hundred Fountains were built between 1566 and 1577, and every fountain runs by gravity alone, without pumps. Ippolito died in Rome on 2 December 1572. In 1660–61 Gian Lorenzo Bernini added the Bicchierone Fountain.
After 1695 upkeep became too costly and the villa declined, passing to the Habsburgs in 1796. Cardinal Gustav von Hohenlohe, who owned the villa from 1850 to 1896, restored house and gardens, and Franz Liszt, who visited from 1865 to 1885, wrote Les jeux d'eau à la Villa d'Este. The Italian State acquired it after the First World War and began a major restoration in 1922. It was inscribed in 2001.
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