The Casino dei Principi (The House of the Princes) has retained the original appearance that Giovan Battista Caretti conferred upon the modest rural building which had been present on the site for nearly a century back in 1840.
The building was used by Prince Alessandro Torlonia, in the course of splendid, high society gatherings organized in the Villa, to watch the performances in the nearby amphitheatre. The beautiful balcony that ran the length of the main facade allowed the prince's guests to look out from the three richly decorated rooms of the "piano nobile" to enjoy the lovely view of the villa.
Although the amphitheatre was destroyed in 1910, to widen the Via Nomentana, the Casino retains some of its original decoration. The two minor facades have beautiful "pronaos" in marble supported by ancient columns and cast iron vases decorate the attic while on the main facade some portions remain of the monochrome painting of the beautiful frieze that portrayed the victory of Alexander the Great in Babylon.
The three rooms of the "piano nobile" were completely covered with tempra paint wall murals representing views of Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome and the Gulf of Naples. Today only the views of the Gulf of Naples are conserved, framed between pro-spectives of a peristyle with Corinthian columns. The floors are of inlaid marble or mosaic tiles to imitate those that were typical of Roman dwellings. To complement the decoration that was accurately recuperated and reintegrated in the three floors of the building, a small, noteworthy museum has been created to allow the visitor to comprehend the quality and the quantity of works that at one time were part of the Torlonia Collection. The greater part of the collection is still privately owned and thus very difficult to see, and others pieces have been lost over time, however, the pieces exhibited here, after a careful restoration permit one to reconstruct the history of the collection. The works come from a number of sources, in part they are connected with the production of Bartolomeo Cavaceppi, the well-known sculptor, restorer and antique dealer of the 1700's from whom Giovanni Torlonia acquired his entire studio, others came from excavations done on the family's properties, and still other were the furnishings of the villa that fortuitously survived the pillage that proceeded the cession to the City of Rome.Among the works of the Cavaceppi Collections on display are four headless statues that represent Modesty, a priestess, Diana and a faun, copies of the original classical statues that are conserved in the Capitoline Museums. The statues were located at the entrance of the Villa on Via Nomentana where they have been replaced with copies in cement and marble dust. Also originally part of the Cavaceppi Collection were the Four Seasons, four "cherubic infants " with the attributes of Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring, copies of 17th century originals by Giovanni 'Rusconi which are now conserved in Windsor Castle in England. The Seasons were part of the decoration of the Theatre of the Villa and, also in this case, will be replaced by copies.
An interesting groups of three large bas-reliefs in stucco and the unfortunately mutilated statue of a dancer with her finger to her chin, are works of Canova. The three bas-reliefs which depict the Death of Socrates, and the Dance of the Feaci and Neoptolemus who kill Priam, were part of a s'eries of ten done by Antonio Canova to decorate the Dining Room of the Palazzo or Main House of the Villa at the time of the renovation by Giuseppe Valadier at the beginning of the 1800's. Removed later during the interventions by Caretti, the bas-reliefs were thought to be lost until in 1997 three of these were found under piles of building debris in the basement of the Theatre and subsequently restored. The Dancer is one of several versions of the celebrated work by Canova which testifies to the success and the diffusion of the subject.
Numerous ancient pieces from various sources are on display: among the bust of emperors, figures in toga, and altars, there is also the beautiful lunette in marble from the tomb of Claudia Semne on the Appia Antica that was also believed to have disappeared from the Villa and was recovered along with the bas-reliefs by Canova. The itinerary ends with the reconstruction of the Bedroom of Giovanni Torlonia. The furniture came from the Palazzo or Main House where it had been used by Benito Mussolini and was found in a storehouse of the State Administration.
On loan to the City of Rome, it is here awaiting its return to original room in the Palazzo. The furniture is of very fine craftsmanship, carved in walnut in the Genovese Baroque style.
The visit ends outside of the Casino, with several important pieces of the Torlonia Collection, the monumental winged Sphinxes, the great coat of Arms of the family, a colossal statue of Hera and an ancient marble vase with decoration, probably added during the Renaissance period.