Villa Lante

The Finnish Institute in Rome, Institutum Romanum Finlandiae, based at Villa Lante al Gianicolo, an extremely well preserved Renaissance villa, is a center for humanities research and teaching. Key fields of research include ancient and medieval history, classical philology, archaeology, and art history, as well as other research on Italy. Besides enabling research projects and courses, the Institute awards fellowships, maintains research and visual arts residencies and an academic library, and issues a series of academic publications. It also organizes lectures, conferences, seminars, and concerts in its premises.

The villa was originally commissioned in 1514 by Baldassare Turini, the head of the office responsible for dating papal documents for Pope Leo X and its construction was fully completed in 1531. The architect was Giulio Romano, a student of Raphael. Other artists from Raphael’s school worked on the building’s frescoes, some of which were removed in 1837 and can today be found in Palazzo Zuccari. The apparent intention was to build a total work of art in the style of Antiquity and spirit of Raphael: all the rooms had to be related to create a synthesis of architecture, sculpture, and painting.

The Finnish state bought the villa for the Foundation of the Finnish Institute in 1950 at which point it had already for a couple of years housed the Finnish Embassy to the Holy See. Renovation works have been carried out in the 1950s, 1970s, 1990s and most recently from September 2023 until May 2025 with ALA Architects acting as the renovation project’s Finnish lead designer. This latest renovation project included the renewal of all building services, façade and roof renovation, some spatial alterations on residential floors, the conservation of the frescoes on the main level and the refurbishment of the garden.