The Sforza Imperiale
Villa Imperiale owes its name to an event that took place in 1452. In January of that year, Emperor Frederick III stopped in Pesaro, and Alessandro Sforza, who commissioned the villa, invited him to visit the site where he intended to build his residence. The Emperor laid the first stone, and from that moment onward the villa became known as the Imperiale.
Construction was completed in 1469, as recorded by the inscription on the entrance portal, flanked by the emblem of the shield with the imperial eagles:
ALEXANDER SFORTIA MCCCCLXVIIII.
The older Sforza building, distinguished by its tall tower, displays all the features of a fifteenth-century country villa, with strong references to Medici architecture. Beyond the vestibule lies a porticoed courtyard, the heart of the fifteenth-century villa, with a decorated wellhead at its centre. Before the alterations made in the sixteenth century, the courtyard’s original layout included, on the ground floor, one side entirely open towards the valley through a portico, and, on the upper level, three sides open in the form of a loggia.
The Della Rovere Imperiale
The most striking part of Villa Imperiale in Pesaro is undoubtedly the wing designed, from as early as 1523, by the Urbino-born architect Girolamo Genga (1476–1551) for the Dukes of Urbino, Francesco Maria Della Rovere and Leonora Gonzaga.
Francesco Maria (1490–1538), son of Giovanni Della Rovere and Giovanna da Montefeltro, had been adopted by his uncle Guidubaldo da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino. From 1508, the Della Rovere family entered a period of great splendour, interrupted only in 1513 by troubled political events. After being sent into exile by Pope Leo X in 1517, the Duke returned to his duchy in 1522 and moved the capital from Urbino to Pesaro, where he planned a series of major works, including the enlargement of Villa Imperiale.
Building work began in 1528: Girolamo Genga restored the old Sforza villa, for which he devised a fresco cycle — executed by Francesco Menzocchi, Raffaellino del Colle, Camillo Mantovano and the Dossi brothers — and designed the new wing. During these years, Genga became the trusted interlocutor of the Duchess, who oversaw the works during her husband’s absences, while he was engaged as Captain for the Republic of Venice.
As Bembo’s inscription states, Villa Imperiale in Pesaro was conceived as Leonora’s gift to the Duke, a place where he could find rest after the hardships endured in battle. Set into the hillside through a system of terraces, the sixteenth-century wing is defined by a predominance of open spaces: loggias, gardens and courtyards, ideal settings for the otia of the Dukes and their guests.
From the Medici to the Albani
In 1631, the Duchy of Urbino passed to the Church, while the Della Rovere estates, including Villa Imperiale, passed to the Medici. After years of neglect, in 1763 the villa became a refuge for Spanish and Portuguese Jesuits forced into exile. Their adaptations profoundly altered much of the villa: many decorations disappeared; rooms and loggias were turned into cells and oratories; the rooftop loggias were walled up, and a new floor was built over the terraces.
In 1777, Prince Orazio Albani obtained the villa in perpetual emphyteusis from Pope Pius VI, although the Jesuits remained there until the end of the century. The Castelbarco Albani family began restoration work in the second half of the nineteenth century, when the frescoed rooms were extensively repainted by the artist Giuseppe Gennari.
In the early twentieth century, work began to bring the original structures of the complex back to light, removing all the additions built by the Jesuit monks and restoring the parts that had fallen into ruin, as recalled by the inscription running along the forepart of the new wing.
During the Second World War, the fifteenth-century building was damaged, fortunately in an area without frescoes; the damage to the new wing was less severe. In 1945, at the behest of Counts Archinta and Guglielmo Castelbarco Albani, a new restoration campaign began. Completed only in the 1970s, it restored the paintings to their original appearance by removing, wherever possible, Gennari’s nineteenth-century interventions.
