The Location
The first enclosure of the Villa Borghese, also known as the Giardino Boschereccio, is the part of the 17th-century villa in front of the Casino Nobile, today the Borghese Gallery, kept green but made to be a museum surrounded by nature.
The Giardino Boschereccio is a dense wood of elms, pines and cypresses, traversed by the Galleria Borghese's avenue (once Viale degli Olmi) and by straight avenues at right angles to each other that give rise to enclosures in which artistic furnishings and various tree essences are arranged.
In this enclosure are the two fountains known as Fontane Oscure, in the centre of a square and surrounded by tall hedges that were places to stop and refresh during walks. In a natural depression of the ground towards Via Pinciana, an elegant pavilion is also built: the Loggia dei Vini.
The Giardino Boschereccio is today profoundly modified from how it was created in 1606 by Flaminio Ponzio with geometric settings based on perspective axes and orthogonal schemes. It was divided into 23 zones divided by hedges that housed the various species of trees and furniture. In its present state, the subdivision with hedges is barely perceptible, but the vegetation within them has completely changed.
Built between 1609 and 1618 under the direction of Flaminio Ponzio, the so-called Wine Loggia is a refined oval construction used for meetings and convivial celebrations during the summer months and connected by an underground passageway to the Casino Nobile.
Inside the vault are frescoes, still visible amidst stucco festoons, depicting the Banquet of the Gods, the work of Archita Ricci. In the centre was a large rectangular marble table, with holes that were filled with water when needed, and used to refresh the wine. The loggia was also above the Grotta dei vini, a sort of ‘wine cellar’ used for storing barrels, connected by an underground passage to the kitchens of the Casino nobile.
The fortunes of the Borghese family also passed through sumptuous banquets and banquets held in the Villa Borghese from the 17th to the 19th century. From the famous banquet on the occasion of the Japanese Ambassadorship in 1619 at the court of Pope Paul V, an example of 17th century international diplomacy, to the banquet in honour of the electress of Saxony, held in 1772 at the Loggia dei Vini and documented by a painting by Ignaz Unterberger, and the splendid banquet offered by the Borghese in 1802 in honour of General Gioacchino Murat, husband of Caroline Bonaparte, on his way to Naples.