Garden: the bold re-enchantment of the Villa Medici in Rome

In the history of the Institut de France in Rome , there are men who, through their artistic sensibility, their work, their ideas, have left their mark on this unique place. This place that intrigues and fascinates. Located on the Pincio hill - above the Piazza di Spagna - which could have been, it is said, the "eighth" of Rome if it had not been, during the imperial era, located outside the urban perimeter.

Among these notable figures, we think of the painter Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres , at the head of the Villa Medici between 1835 and 1841, who planted the imposing umbrella pines in the garden and had the residents inlaid the bas-reliefs in the Bosco gallery. More recently, Balthus, director of the place from 1961 to 1977. Appointed by André Malraux, who gave him the checkbook of the Republic, he reawakened this sleeping beauty. Buying furniture from antique dealers, in auction rooms, repainting its walls with what is now called the "Balthus patina"...