1000 Cobblestones

As an American tourist, I was just as amazed and comforted by the villa as its earliest Italian guests would have been.  It was a relief to escape the noise of Rome to seek refuge within the garden; it was a sort of Eden to those who sought it out.  When it came to delighting the eye, I saw no one disappointed by the excursion.  But as for delighting the soul and maintaining that Eden atmosphere, the villa, upon closer inspection, failed miserably.  As my scrutiny increased, I began to see a different garden, commissioned by a man caught in his own soul’s labyrinth of deceit.  A man who, given his title, should have set a far more upright example.

The Villa d’Este was constructed in the eleventh century under the ordinance of Cardinal Ippolito II d’Este.  It was given in honor of the cardinal’s new position as governor of Tivoli after having failed in his quest for the papal crown.  Originally, the presented gift was a monastery, but this was not pompous enough for Ippolito, and he set about to revamp the architecture to better suit his taste.  Envying the nearby Villa Adriana – built by the anti-Semitic and avid humanist emperor Hadrian – Ippolito took much of his inspiration from the emperor, including his pagan gods.  Slowly, the monastery morphed into a grand villa atop the hill, overlooking the many commissioned fountains displaying numerous Roman deities.

They still remain today.  Within the gardens, Neptune can be found, as well as dancing nymphs, river gods, a Pegasus, and the many-breasted Diana in her own personal grotto.  The very deities condemned by the church Ippolito sought to be a part of adorn his private estate.  In what Ippolito called “the Valley of Many Pleasures” lurk the very enemies of Christianity, the false gods and goddesses purged from the Pantheon in the effort to reform pagan Rome!  This would not be quite so shocking had Ippolito been a mere Roman citizen or admirer of Greek art as his beloved Hadrian had been.  Instead, this comes from the mind of a man seeking to become God’s personal advocate of the church in the earth.  I was angered by this display of worldly affection, but a look inside his villa only intensified my reaction.

From the delicately frescoed ceilings, God speaks.  And it was here, not in the gardens, that I found evidence of Ippolito’s faith.  An entire ceiling is dedicated to Noah and his sacrifice to God after he is spared from the global flood; another commemorates Moses.  It is artwork that completely contradicts the pagan fountains. 

Yet even here, in his most private rooms, Ippolito’s fascination with the mythological is captured.  There are frescoes for Hercules and Tibur, and a large bed chamber adaptation of Virtue’s victory over Vice.  Herein lies the crux of his hypocrisy.  While attempting to speak of the defeat of sin and indulgence, Ippolito fails to notice his own doubleminded faith and the wavering of his soul from God to the pagan world.  And while his entire villa is breathtaking, it hardly bears witness to a man allegedly devoted to one God, let alone Jesus Christ.  Aside from the few Biblical paintings, there is no mention of Christianity whatsoever.  His taste for the rich and elaborate induces marvel from thousands of visitors, but neglects to leave any legacy beyond the soil of this earth.  Ippolito’s strange juxtaposition of the sacred and profane ruined my respect for the villa, tainting the natural beauty which pointed to the Creator with manmade supergods that point only to the pride of man and the lusts of his eyes.

While the Pantheon was a deliberate effort to replace pagan deity with Christian emblems, the Villa d’Este is a warped confection of two separate worlds, one that confused me and likely many other early Christians.

Later I would learn that the Diana grotto, as crude as it was, was replaced in 1611, after the Counter Reformation decreed such erotic artwork abominable.  The goddess was removed for a time but was eventually brought back to its original place.  This is also, to me, a clear picture of Ippolito’s hypocrisy – as long as no one was watching, he continued in his pagan fascination, but when questions were asked, he skillfully covered up his sin, pointing to the hidden “allegory” of man’s redemption within every false god.  It only makes me wonder how many other practicing cardinals or bishops were dabbling in secular beliefs.  And does this one account of Ippolito help explain the corruption of the early church before the pious movement was introduced?  If other early Christians were only staking their belief in Christ because it meant a chance at power and wealth, how could a religion based on servanthood and poverty be accurately communicated to the masses?  Surely the fact that Christianity has endured to the present day shows that there were faithful followers of Christ and of these principles of grace.  Not all early Christians were destroyed by hypocrisy; but an account like Ippolito’s does prove the church’s constant cry for a connection to God, which could not be attained on one’s own strength, but only through faith in a loving God.