Sleeping at Villa Medici

Villa Medici offers guests the possibility of staying in two historic rooms: the Galileo Room and the Debussy Room. The rooms, each 70 square meters in size, are embellished with friezes painted in the late 16th century by Florentine artist Jacopo Zucchi and walls whose color scheme was designed by Balthus in the 1960s. Both were part of the former apartment of Ferdinando de’ Medici, located on the main floor of the Villa, and were completely renovated in 2023 by architect and designer India Mahdavi. For the restyling, Mahdavi collaborated with top French and Italian craftsmen specializing in ceramics, weaving, and cabinetmaking, thereby enhancing ancient outstanding skills. The wood inlays of the beds and furniture harmonize with the play of light in the fabrics and ceramic fixtures in the bathrooms, creating a graphic and colorful universe.

The two historic rooms, along with the adjacent Lili Boulanger Salon, are named after great figures in the arts and sciences who left their mark on the history of the Villa.

Galileo, the first mathematician and philosopher at the court of Cosimo II de’ Medici, stayed at Villa Medici twice: the first time from 1615-1616 and the second time in 1633. During the second stay, then in his seventies, Galileo was summoned to Rome before the Tribunal of the Holy Office for having “ maintained, and believed false doctrine and contrary to the sacred and divine scriptures, that the sun is the center of the earth.” Beginning June 24, 1633, after his abjuration and under the protection of the Medici, a room on the first floor of the Villa became his residence and prison. In March 2023, the French Academy in Rome acquired François-Marius Granet’s 1815 painting, Galileo , inspired by the scientist’s weeks of imprisonment at Villa Medici.

Claude Debussy, a maverick composer, stayed at Villa Medici from 1885 to 1887 as a fellow of the Academy. His presence marked a break with the French Romantic style: he was the first composer to bring to the Villa the nascent echoes of symbolism in music. The so-called “Debussy piano” (a Pleyel baby grand piano, c.1910) is on display in the Lili Boulanger Salon. The Villa Medici library preserves 33 scores by Claude Debussy, including La demoiselle élue, written by the composer in 1887 at Villa Medici and recently acquired by the Academy.

Lili Boulanger, a fellow in 1914-1915, was the first woman in the history of the Academy admitted to study music composition. Winner of the Grand Prix de Rome at the age of 19, the rising star of French music died prematurely in 1918 from tuberculosis. The Villa Medici library preserves ten of her musical scores, including one in her own hand.

Find out more about the refurbishment of these historic rooms