La Casina delle Civette in Rome was designed in 1840 by Giuseppe Jappelli commissioned by Prince Alessandro Torlonia. It appeared as a rustic artifact with external facing of tuff bosses and an interior painted in tempera imitating rocks and wooden planks. The two buildings that make up the architectural complex today, the main villa and the outbuilding, connected by a small wooden gallery and an underground passage, have almost nothing to do with the romantic refuge with an Alpine flavor conceived in the nineteenth century by Jappelli, except for the masonry structures of the two main building bodies arranged in an “L” shape, for the deliberately rustic imprint, for the use of various construction materials left exposed, and for the pitched roof.
In fact, already from 1908, the Swiss Cabin began to undergo a progressive and radical transformation under the will of Alessandro’s nephew, Giovanni Torlonia Jr., taking on the appearance and name of the “Medieval Village”; the work was directed by architect Enrico Gennari and the small building became a refined residence with large windows, loggias, porticoes, turrets, decorated with majolica and stained glass.
Since 1916 the building began to be called the “Villa of the Owls” for the presence of the stained glass with two stylized owls among ivy vines, made by Duilio Cambellotti already in 1914, and for the almost obsessive recurrence of the owl theme in the decorations and furniture, desired by Prince Giovanni, a grumpy man and lover of esoteric symbols.
In 1917 architect Vincenzo Fasolo added the structures to the southern front of the Casina, elaborating a fanciful decorative apparatus in the Art Nouveau style.
Fasolo’s imprint is recognizable in the choice of volumes that cluster and intersect taking shape in a great variety of materials and decorative details. The unifying element of the many architectural solutions is the gray tone of the finish coat of the roofs, for which thin slate slabs, variably shaped, were used, contrasted with the lively color of the glazed terracotta tiles.
The interior spaces, arranged on two levels, are all particularly cared for in their finishing works; pictorial decorations, stuccoes, mosaics, polychrome majolica, inlaid woods, wrought irons, wall fabrics, marble sculptures show the prince’s special attention to residential comfort.
Among the many decorations, the presence of stained glass is so predominant as to constitute the distinctive feature of the building: the stained glasses were all installed between 1908 and 1930 and constitute a “unique item” in the international artistic panorama, all produced by Cesare Picchiarini’s workshop based on designs by Duilio Cambellotti, Umberto Bottazzi, Vittorio Grassi, and Paolo Paschetto.
The destruction of the building began in 1944, with the occupation by Anglo-American troops, which lasted more than three years.
When in 1978 the Municipality of Rome acquired the Villa, both the buildings and the park were in disastrous conditions.
The fire of 1991 worsened the Casina’s state of decay, together with thefts and vandalism. The current image of the Casina delle Civette is the result of a long, patient, and meticulous restoration work, carried out from 1992 to 1997, which, with what is still preserved and based on numerous documentary sources, has allowed the return to the city of one of the most singular and interesting artifacts of the early years of the last century.
