Rome's Villa Farnesina

We spent most of Monday driving from Paestum to Rome, setting up camp at our old friend Prato Smeraldo, near Laurentina and the EUR. We stored the camper at Prato Smeraldo in 2011, and also camped there for the weeks we toured Rome that year. It is a short bus ride and then a quick metro ride to the heart of the city. On Tuesday we went into the Eternal City and did the Villa Farnesina, which we had missed in 2011, and then the English tour of St. Peter's, which we figured would get us privileged access as well as insight. Maybe an indulgence or two. Figure again.

The Villa Farnese was the (Cardinal) Farnese villa across the
river from the Farnese Palace; it was built in the early 16th
century for Agostino Chigi, banker for Popes Julius II and
Leo X, and later acquired by the Farneses; it main claim
to fame, other than beautiful Renaissance architecture and
grounds, are the frescoes by Team Raphael; above, the
Triumph of Galatea

"Stop with the music or I shoot off your Johnson!"

Still in the Loggia of Galatea, there were other interesting
frescoes, not by Raphael, that did not escape my critical gaze,
although I still have not come up with a good caption for
this curiosity

Moving right along, we are now in the Loggia of Cupid and
Psyche, the impressive ceiling of which was done by Team
Raphael

Up closer of the Marriage of Cupid and Psyche; note the
wings on the airborne creatures

Mercury!

Now in the Room of the Frieze, which is the little strip
running around the top, mostly the deeds of Hercules; what
impressed us was the drapery all around, in many of the
rooms, all of it illusionary painting

Nice alabaster torchiere

Nice marble staircase

Nice marble door off the staircase

In the Hall of Perspective Views, more illusional stuff

More ditto, by Baldassare Peruzzi

Graffiti left by Charles V's soldiers, sacking Rome in 1527

And lastly, in the Room of the Marriage of Alexander the
Great and Roxana, The Marriage of Alexander the Great and
Roxana, by Giovanni Bazzi, who went by the possibly
unfortunate name of Sodoma

Although it is certainly the most heavily advertised sight on
this side of the river, we weren't convinced it was worth the
5 euros

Although the grounds were nice