The Pincio garden

At the foot of the villa lies the Pincio, the public garden laid out by Giuseppe Valadier at the start of the nineteenth century. Its walks planted with pines and plane trees, peopled with busts of illustrious men, reach the terrace overlooking the Piazza del Popolo.

From there Rome unfolds as far as the Janiculum: the domes, the bell-towers, the mass of St Peter’s on the horizon. It is the Romans’ meeting place at sunset, and the subject of a thousand paintings, prints and photographs.

For a young painter from the north, this light and this line of horizon were a revelation. The four Roman years of Jean Marc Lange are held entirely in this passage from the enclosed places of the villa to the wide openness of the city.

The villa and its flowering parterres, seen from the Pincio garden