The "Room of the Winds" with Mount Parnassus: From Le fontane di Roma, part 2, Le fontane delle ville di Frascati (plate 7), 1691
Artist: Giovanni Battista Falda (Italian, ca. 1640–1678)
Rome: Giovanni Giacomo de' Rossi, 1691
Etching
Artist Biography
Artist: Giovanni Battista Falda (Italian, ca. 1640–1678)
Rome: Giovanni Giacomo de' Rossi, 1691
Etching
Overall: 11 x 15 7/8 x 1 5/16 in. (27.9 x 40.4 x 3.4 cm)
Gift of D. W. Langton, transferred from the Library (1991.1073.145.7)
The element of water, central to all display in the garden of the Villa Aldobrandini, also enlivened spaces inside garden pavilions, such as this magnificent room, the Sala d'Apollo or Stanza dei Venti (Room of the Winds). Recalling the feature of the ancient grotto-nymphaeum, this richly adorned stanza featured a large Mount Parnassus, the mythical home of Apollo and the Muses. Famous among seventeenth- and eighteenth-century travelers for its pneumatic and hydraulic marvels, the Stanza dei Venti included surprising water tricks and artificial sounds of thunder, wind, and rain.
