PALAZZO CORSINI & THE BOTANICAL GARDENS – If you’re on your second or third visit to Rome, or simply if you love peaceful surroundings and hidden treasures. Nature and art pervade this corner of Trastevere were time seems to have slowed down.

Via della Lungara, designed by architect Donato Bramante for Pope Julius II, runs almost parallel to the Tiber, and is a sort of ‘twin’ to Via Julia, located on the opposite shore of the river. Embellished since the Renaissance by the facades of villas, palaces and churches, Via della Lungara was partly demolished to give room to the ‘muraglioni’, the high protective walls along the Tiber, at the end of the 19^th century.

Palazzo Corsini, opposite to Villa Farnesina, is a huge late Baroque residence, with a linear, almost neoclassical façade along the main street. A more articulated front faces the vast gardens, climbing up the lower slopes of the Janiculum. These gardens became Botanical Gardens at the end of the 19^th century.

This area belonged in the 16^th century to the Riario family, who built a house here in 1511, often occupied by important guests, such as ambassadors, cardinals and the like. The most famous of these guests, who stayed for 30 years, was Queen Christine of Sweden (1659-1689), of which we’ll see the famous Alcove.

The Corsini, an important Florentine family, bought the house in 1736, after Lorenzo Corsini was elected Pope as Clemens XII. Thanks to their enormous wealth and to architect Ferdinando Fuga, two new bodies were added and the whole property was restyled in an eclectic 18^th century style.

Both the Pope Clemens XII and his ‘cardinal nephew’, Neri Maria, were avid collectors, and accumulated a treasure of paintings, bronzes, marbles and books. When in 1883 Tommaso Corsini sold the house to the Italian Kingdom he donated the entire art collection, that is still today displayed as National Gallery here.