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The collections
The French Academy in Rome preserves a collection of nearly 5,000 works. Some of these are exhibited in Villa Medici and its gardens and are regularly studied and restored.
Overview of the collection
The collection of the French Academy in Rome features numerous pieces of historic furniture, contemporary art and design objects, and a substantial collection of plaster casts, with pieces dating back to the time of Louis XIV. Works also include 17th- and 18th-century tapestries, ancient bas-reliefs, and medals. The painting section has about 500 works, including 463 portraits of fellows made between 1798 and 1936. The Academy also has a wide-ranging collection of historical musical instruments, an important collection of graphic art consisting of engravings, drawings and watercolors, and a photo library with about 16,000 photographs, including prints, works in ektachrome and negatives. The Academy is also a repository for works from French collections, particularly from the Mobilier national.
A family home
In 1576, Cardinal Ferdinando I de’ Medici moved into the Roman villa that today bears his name: he did major renovations and spread his sumptuous collection of works of art throughout the palace and gardens. In 1587, when he became Grand Duke of Tuscany and moved to Florence, he took a large part of his collection with him. Today it is preserved in the Uffizi Gallery, the Loggia dei Lanzi, the Boboli Gardens and the Bargello Museum.
Created in 1666 by Louis XIV, the French Academy in Rome also has a collection that was built up over the centuries, and works by the fellows in particular. After the looting in 1793 of the Mancini Palace, where it was formerly located, the Academy of France in Rome was established in 1803 at the Villa Medici. Alongside the works rescued from the looting and rare antique works left by Ferdinando de’ Medici, the sculpture collection was enhanced by plaster copies made by the Academy’s fellows.
The tradition of the portraits
Along with forty other paintings, the portraits of the fellows, made during their stay at the Villa Medici following a widespread tradition in the Roman academies, make up the painting collection of the French Academy in Rome. The portraits include famous subjects such as Ingres, Berlioz, and Debussy, with a total of 463 portraits made between 1810 and 1935. Executed by painters who were fellows, these works became a tradition that probably dates back to the 18th century and continued until 1935.
Today, the collection of Villa Medici paintings has been expanded further with recent acquisitions, including Jacopo Zucchi’s Portrait of Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici (1575), Chambre de l’artiste à la Villa Médicis, dite la chambre turque (1850) by Alfred de Curzon, Le Retour sur terre de Coré et l’avènement du printemps (1925-1930) by Odette Pauvert, the Galilée (1815) by François-Marius Granet, or Trinité-des-Monts vue du Pincio (1928) by Maurice Denis.
These works are complemented by a comprehensive collection of graphic art, including the bequest of the fellow and architect Alfred Normand, a complete series of Piranesi’s albums, and an exceptional set of tapestries. These include two from the Seasons cycle made to designs by Francesco Salviati, as well as tapestries from the cycles of the so-called Indies and the Story of Esther, saved from the looting of Palazzo Mancini. Finally, there is also room for an important collection of antique and contemporary furniture (more than 900 pieces, mostly acquired by Balthus).
Portrait of Cardinal Ferdinando de' Medici
This portrait was made in 1575 by the Florentine painter Jacopo Zucchi, for many years in the service of the Medici family, for whom he made, among other things, the painted decorations in the cardinal's apartment on the piano nobile of Villa Medici and Ferdinando's pavilion in the gardens
This work can be seen on the guided tours of Villa Medici.
The tapestries of the Indies
A gift from Louis XV, the Tenture des Indes (Tapestries of the Indies) is a series of tapestries woven by the Manufacture Royale des Gobelins between 1723 and 1726 based on paintings by Albert Eckhout and Frans Post, depicting hunting scenes in Brazil and reflecting the aesthetic taste in vogue at European courts from the 17th to the 19th century
Portraits of Fellows
Until 1935, Villa Medici fellows made more than 400 portraits, continuing a tradition that most likely originated at Palazzo Mancini. However, the earliest examples of this tradition have not been found, probably due to looting
Portrait of Lili Boulanger
In 1914, Pierre Bodard, a fellow and painter at the French Academy in Rome, painted a portrait of Lili Boulanger, the first woman composer fellow at the Academy
The Turkish Room
The so-called “Turkish” room, located at the top of one of the turrets of the Villa Medici, was designed by painter and director of the institution Horace Vernet. The room inspired many artists, including Alfred de Curzon, who painted “Chambre de l'artiste à la Villa Médicis” in 1850
Le Retour sur terre de Coré et l'avènement du printemps by Odette Pauvert
Born into a family of artists, Odette Pauvert was the first woman painter to win the Grand Prix de Rome for painting in 1925. She was a Fellow at Villa Medici from 1926 to 1929. Her painting Le Retour sur terre de Coré et l'avènement du printemps was acquired in 2023 by the French Academy in Rome.
This work can be seen on the guided tours of Villa Medici.
Exceptional originals
At Villa Medici, visitors can still admire some extraordinary ancient masterpieces from Ferdinando de’ Medici’s collection. These include the monumental marble sculpture of the Goddess Rome, more than 5 meters high, which welcomes guests to the gardens. The goddess’ helmet, adorned with two she-wolves, recalls the founding myth of the eternal city. The imposing work, found during excavations at the Quirinale, was given to Ferdinando de’ Medici by Pope Gregory XIII. It was perhaps the goddess’ role as Rome’s protector that made it possible to prevent it from being moved to Florence, unlike other ancient pieces in the cardinal’s collection.
Elsewhere in the gardens, ancient remains – columns, capitals, stelae –have been arranged according to an evocative poetics of ruins that evokes the imagery of the Academy’s fellows and painters in the 18th century. One of the funerary stelae, in memory, bears the names of scholars who died at the front during World War I, engraved by their own comrades.
A facade adorned with ancient bas-reliefs
In the gardens, the villa’s façade offers another perspective on Ferdinando de’ Medici’s collection. In 1584, the latter acquired Cardinal Andrea della Valle’s prestigious collection of antiquities, including numerous bas-reliefs. That same year, Ferdinando commissioned architect Bartolomeo Ammannati to arrange the reliefs on the facade facing the gardens. Arranged symmetrically around the three serlians of the loggia, the bas-reliefs, dating from the 2nd and 3rd centuries, reflect the Renaissance taste for antiquity and pay homage to Roman sculpture of the imperial era.
On the central body are prominent scenes from the temple of the mother goddess Cybele, accounts of Trajan’s wars against the Dacians, and Hercules fighting the Nemean lion. On the sides are monumental festoons from the Ara Pacis, the altar built by Augustus in 9 B.C. in honor of Pax, the goddess of Peace. Emerging amidst whorls of acanthus, fruits and flowers, are bucrania, symbols of animal sacrifices offered to the goddess. Ferdinando de’ Medici had acquired these reliefs from Cardinal Ricci at the same time he purchased the villa.
Originally the facade was painted white, but from the 1870s it took on a darker hue, caused both by aging of the patina and the application of ochre-colored plasters. Restoration work carried out between 1994 and 1996 brought the the facade back to its splendid camaïeu of whites, achieved by the harmonious use of ancient marble, travertine, and stucco. This renovation was crucial, since Villa Medici, with its dominant position on the Pincio Hill, represents an emblematic landmark in Rome’s urban landscape.
The façade of Villa Medici
The façade is adorned with ancient bas-reliefs depicting sacrificial scenes, divine figures, mythological tales and theatrical masks.
The façade and its bas-reliefs can be seen on the guided tours of Villa Medici.
Battle between Hercules and the Nemean Lion, fragment of bas-relief, 3rd century
Decorative panel with festoons and bucrania from the Ara Pacis, late 1st century BC.
Detail of one of the towers and the facade
Temple of Mars Ultor, fragment of bas-relief, 1st century. Female statues from various periods, notably the 2nd century
Hippolyte's Story, fragment of a sarcophagus, 2nd century
Exceptional tapestries
Villa Medici houses an important collection of tapestries. The historical tapestries include two examples of the Four Seasons cycle: The Autumn et The Spring (1574-1651), the Tenture des Indes (1723-1726) and the Esther cycle (1774). They offer a glimpse into the transformations by European imaginations over the centuries, and reveal significant heritage, cultural and historical issues.
The Autumn and Spring
The allegorical tapestries of Autumn and Spring, based on designs by Mannerist painter Francesco Salviati (1510-1563), bear witness to the exceptional skills of Brussels’ 17th-century weavers. Bequeathed to Villa Medici by the Italian art historian and collector Federico Zeri, they will be the subject of a major conservation restoration campaign in 2021-2022, thanks to the skilled sponsorship of Ateliers Bobin Tradition.
La Tenture des Indes
Presented to the French Academy in Rome by King Louis XV, the Tenture des Indes adorned the piano nobile of Palazzo Mancini on Via del Corso, the Academy’s headquarters until the end of the 18th century. Woven by the Manufacture Royale des Gobelins, the Tenture des Indes consists of eight pieces. Although conceived as an ambitious “portrait” of Brazil, based on drawings and paintings by Albert Eckhout (1610-1665) and Frans Post (1612-1680), the group evokes an “exotic” elsewhere, referred to generically as the “Indies”, which blends the flora and fauna of South America with plants and animals from the African continent, and even imaginary species. These artifacts celebrate a fantastical abundance, intertwined with motifs evoking the exploitation and colonization policies of the New World, in which both the Amerindian populations and the African slaves present in the colonies are represented. The study and promotion of the collections is one of the Academy’s missions, and this is reflected in the organization of symposia, the hosting of researchers at Villa Medici and the production of texts, to continue to analyze and illuminate the heritage. To find out more about the Tenture des Indes, read the article by Cécile Fromont and the interview with Gerlinde Klatte in Studiolo no. 18.
The Esther cycle
Of the seven paintings that make up the complete tapestry dedicated to the Old Testament heroine Esther, only two are preserved at Villa Medici and adorn the Chambre des Amours: Toilette d’Esther and Évanouissement d’Esther. These tapestries, some of the finest productions of the Manufacture des Gobelins, were woven from cartoons created by the artist Jean-François de Troy (1679-1752) when he was director of the Academy. Each tapestry took between two and three years to complete.
In dialogue with the historical tapestries, a group of modern and contemporary tapestries adorn the walls of Villa Medici, on loan from the Mobilier national. They are by Louise Bourgeois, Patrick Corillon, Eduardo Chillida, Sonia Delaunay, Sheila Hicks, Aurélie Nemours, Alicia Penalba and Raoul Ubac.
The furniture
A place to live, work and meet, Villa Medici also houses a collection of antique furniture from the 17th and 18th centuries, creations by Balthus (lamps) and Richard Peduzzi (tables, chairs, lamps) as well as contemporary designers: Chiara Andreatti, Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance, India Mahdavi, Toan Nguyen, David Lopez Quincoces. From India Mahdavi’s four-poster bed to the Via Appia table designed by Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance in homage to the famous ancient road, contemporary design shines at Villa Medici (find out more).
Musical instruments
Music is also at the heart of the Villa Medici collections, reflecting the importance of this discipline at the French Academy in Rome since the creation of the Grand Prix de Musique in 1803. Renowned composers have stayed at the Academy: Boulanger, Berlioz, Gounod, Bizet, Massenet, Debussy, Ravel.
In 2023, Villa Medici launched a major restoration project for five historical instruments in its collections: a Pleyel piano from the early 20th century (restoration in 2024-2025), a harpsichord from the late 17th century and a positive organ from the 18th century (restoration in 2025), a 19th-century Erard pianoforte and a Gaveau piano dating from the late 1920s (restoration in 2026).
This campaign has a dual objective: to promote the heritage of Villa Medici while developing a musical programme that includes the restored instruments.
The scientific committee responsible for overseeing these restorations includes: Sonia Martone, director of the Museo Nazionale degli Strumenti Musicali; Anne Piéjus, research director at the CNRS; Christine Laloue, curator at the Musée de la Musique, in charge of harpsichords, fine arts and archives returned to collections from manufacturers/lutherie; Christian Lutz, technical advisor approved by the French historical monuments, organ specialist; Thierry Maniguet, curator at the Music Museum, in charge of pianos and the museum’s conservation and research team; as well as the director of the art history department of the French Academy in Rome.
The Dea Roma
The 5-metre-high marble goddess, protector of Rome, was acquired by Ferdinando de' Medici immediately after its discovery during excavations at the Quirinale, and placed in the gardens.
This work can be seen on the guided tours of Villa Medici.
The "carré des vestiges" or quadrangle of the ruins
In the gardens, the "carré des vestiges" has been laid out with the ancient remains uncovered during excavations at Villa Medici.
Autumn
Based on drawings by the Mannerist painter Francesco Salviati (1510-1563), the allegorical tapestries of Autumn and Spring bear witness to the exceptional skills of 17th-century Brussels weavers. The tapestries have undergone a major conservation restoration campaign in 2021-2022, thanks to the expertise of Ateliers Bobin Tradition.
Autumn, after Francesco Salviati (1510-1563), first quarter of the 17th century, basse lice tapestry, Manufacture de Jan Raes I, wool and silk weft, collection of the French Academy in Rome - Villa Medici, bequest of Federico Zeri
Le Cheval rayé (The Striped horse)
Based on a work by Dutch painter Albert Eckhout (1610-1666), the tapestry Le Cheval rayé belongs to the Tenture des Indes cycle. It reiterates the imagery of combat with, at the center of the composition, a hunched zebra attacked by a jaguar in front of a rhinoceros. A profusion of other animals accentuates the impression of agitation, which is also conveyed by the movement of the waterfall carrying several fish.
Le Cheval rayé de la Tenture des Indes, d’après Albert Eckhout (1610- 1665), 6e série, 1723-1726, tapisseries de haute lisse, Manufacture des Gobelins, 390 × 401 cm, collection de l'Académie de France à Rome – Villa Médicis
Esther fainting
L'Évanouissement d'Esther (Esther fainting) and La Toilette d'Esther (Esther's toilette) are two large-scale tapestries in the Story of Esther series, a hanging of seven wool and silk tapestries whose subjects were painted between 1736 and 1741 by Jean-François de Troy, director of the French Academy in Rome (1738-1751).
L'Évanouissement d'Esther (284 cm x 428 cm), after Jean-François de Troy (1679-1752), 1774, tapestries, wool and silk, Manufacture des Gobelins, collection of the French Academy in Rome - Villa Medici. This work can be seen on the guided tours of Villa Medici.
Panel 1954, by Sonia Delaunay
The composition organized around several circles is a recurring motif characteristic of Sonia Delaunay's abstract art. The transposition of her pictorial work into tapestry follows a series of textile creations, design pieces and ready-to-wear items in which Sonia Delaunay breaks free from the hierarchy of genres.
Sonia Delaunay (1885-1979), Panneau 1954, 2000, tapestry, wool, textile, 293 x 273 cm, Manufacture des Gobelins, Mobilier national collection.
Machadito and Dans la forêt, by Alicia Penalba
Alicia Penalba, an Argentinian-born abstract sculptor on the French scene in the 1950s. The two tapestries echo the effect of flight and suspension in her Les Ailés sculpture series. Vertical and oblique planes are superimposed on a vertical axis, like a spinal column or mobile.
Panel no. 5, by Raoul Ubac
It was from slate prints that Raoul Ubac produced the series of lithographs used to create the eight tapestries entitled Panneaux, kept at the Mobilier National and one of which is on deposit at Villa Medici. By alternating weaving techniques and playing with thread colors, the weavers succeeded in rendering the material effects of Ubac's engravings, which play on gloss and matte, rough and soft, hollow and relief.
Raoul Ubac (1910-1985), Panel n. 5, 1970, tapestry, textile, wool, 200 x 150 m, Manufacture de Beauvais, Mobilier national collection.
Homenaje a Paris, by Eduardo Chillida
Spanish Basque artist Eduardo Chillida began his career as a sculptor in Paris in the 1950s. The tapestry Homenaje a Paris pays tribute to the city that played such an important role in the artist's training. Chillida worked in close collaboration with the Manufacture de Beauvais to translate a preparatory gouache drawing into tapestry, where the irregularity of the smudges is clearly visible.
Eduardo Chillida (1924-2002), Homenaje a Paris, 2001, linen tapestry, textile, wool, 240 x 405 cm, Manufacture de Beauvais, Mobilier national collection.
The Debussy piano
It was on this piano that Claude Debussy, Fellow at the Villa Medici, composed Rondes de printemps, La Damoiselle élue and Petite suite pour piano in 1886 and 1887. A romantic piano par excellence, the Pleyel half-tail piano known as the Debussy was made by one of the most prestigious manufacturers of the 19th century, founded by Ignace Pleyel in 1807. This historic instrument, with its inimitable sound, "powerful and even, clear and silvery, with a great lightness of touch and a remarkable extension of vibrations" (Michaël Levinas), embodies the qualities Debussy sought in his compositions. The piano was restored in 2024.
The art of copying in the 17th and 18th centuries
The Villa Medici collection reflects the work of the Fellows in residence, based on the central idea of copying through the casting technique. Over the generations, a collection of “modern antiquities” has been built up, bearing witness to the great masterpieces of Antiquity and the Renaissance that were present in Rome in the 17th and 18th centuries. Inaugurated in 2009 under the direction of Fréderic Mitterrand in one of the former workshops located on the walls of Aurélien, the gypsothèque houses part of this precious collection of plaster prints from the Academy. It includes casts of major works from the Classical and Hellenistic periods, including the famous Belvedere torso that has fascinated artists for centuries, the striking head of Montecavallo’s Dioscurus, and the oldest existing casts of fragments of the Trajan column, made in the time of Louis XIV. The opening of the gypsothèque to the public in 2009 marks the recognition of these heritage objects and the start of new research carried out in collaboration with the Musée du Louvre. This makes it possible to analyze the materials and sophisticated techniques developed by the Academy’s artists for these casts, and to better understand their history.
Balthus and copying in the 20th century
Aware of the importance of copying, Balthus, director from 1961 to 1977, decided to restore the Renaissance character of Villa Medici’s gardens by installing copies of Ferdinando de Medici’s antiques, such as the obelisk in the Fountain of the Dolphins, the Dacian prisoners and the Niobids. In 1972, fellow and sculptor Michel Bourbon was commissioned to cast the originals for the copies. To create the copies, he developed an avant-garde recipe: a mixture of marble and epoxy resin.
The Niobids group, a replica of the 1st- and 2nd-century originals housed at the Uffizi in Florence, recounts the myth of Niobe, queen of Thebes who dared to boast that she had given birth to more children than Leto, the mother of Artemis and Apollo. To avenge the insult to their mother, the brother and sister shoot Niobe’s unfortunate offspring with their arrows.
Not only did Balthus decide to replicate this sculptural group, but he also designed a scenic setting in the gardens. With artificial rocks, lush vegetation, and gushing water, he created an evocative atmosphere to accommodate the replica.
For the replica of the over 20-foot-tall obelisk that adorned the Fountain of the Dolphins, Michel Bourbon made a cast from the original in the Boboli Gardens in Florence. The obelisk, made of pink Aswan granite, had come to Rome in the first century and was later acquired by Ferdinando de’ Medici.
Casts of three Dacian Prisoners, draped in red porphyry, were also made by Michel Bourbon in 1975. In 2020, these casts underwent an innovative bio-restoration, performed with essential oils, in collaboration with two master restorers from the Vatican Museums’ marble restoration workshop.
The Gypsotheque
From the ancient Greek gýpsos (plaster), the gypsothèque is the repository for historical plaster casts obtained by molding original works. Villa Medici's gypsothèque houses a collection of 600 plaster casts that have served as models of study, inspiration and reflection for generations of Fellows.
The works conserved in the Gypsothèque can be seen on the guided tours of Villa Medici.
Cast of the Belvedere Torso
The Belvedere Torso had a significant influence on modern art, particularly during the Renaissance, inspiring many artists. The original marble work is kept in the collections of the Vatican Museums.
This work can be seen on the guided tours of Villa Medici.
The Obelisk and Fountain of the Dolphins
Over 6 meters high, the copy of the pink granite obelisk adorns the Fountain of the Dolphins. At the time of Ferdinando de' Medici, it was the only Egyptian obelisk to be placed in a private Roman garden.
This work can be seen on the guided tours of Villa Medici.
The Niobids
In the gardens of Villa Medici, the Niobids are casts made in 1976 of one of the jewels in Ferdinando de Medici's collection, dating from the 4th century AD. In a grandiose setting, this sculptural group evokes the myth of Niobe recounted in The Iliad.
This work can be seen on the guided tours of Villa Medici.
The three Dacian prisoners
The casts depict three standing Dacian prisoners, their hands bound, symbolizing the conquest of Dacia, in what is now Romania and Moldavia, by the Roman emperor Trajan in the early 2nd century. The casts, in cement and resin, mimic the contrasting colors of porphyry and marble.
Sculpture of a Dacian in the gardens
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