Fruits and Nuts of the Villa Farnesina

named Agostino Chigi (1466–1520) decided to build a new home for himself that was to be the most splendid in Rome. A banker to popes and kings, Chigi’s modus operandi was to lend money and, in return, obtain monopolies for such things as importation of grain or production of alum from mines. He often accepted jewelry for “security.” He was in a sense a pawnbroker and a wheeler-dealer who structured his deals so he couldn’t lose. He became the richest man in Europe. Chigi was a courtier, very well connected, and truly a Renaissance man. Although not particularly well educated, he bought into humanism, a Renaissance movement that had rediscovered Latin and Greek writings and the mythical legends of the pagan world, was absorbed with nature, and was intensely concerned with the human condition. Chigi built the most splendid residence in Rome to honor and glorify himself. Chigi’s villa, now known as the Villa Farnesina (it was sold to Cardinal Farnesina by Chigi’s heirs after they burned through their inheritance), is located on the West Bank of the Tiber in the district now known as the Trastevere, southeast of the Vatican and east of the Orto Botanico. Here Agostino Chigi, the Magnificent, received artists, poets, princes, cardinals, and the pope in opulence and pomp. At one famous dinner the silver and gold plates were thrown into the Tiber after use—but into nets. The building was an evocation of the classical world, with the rooms filled with paintings and statues, opulent furnishings, and a garden called the viridiarium, a repository of rare plants. Each room is decorated with a different theme, but this article will concentrate on the loggia, now known as the Loggia of Psyche, originally a veranda or gallery with one wall open to the outside. The Loggia of Psyche was decorated under the management of Raphael Sanzio (1483–1520), the boy wonder of the high Renaissance and a rival to Michaelangelo Burotti. As judged by Fruits and Nuts of the Villa Farnesina