The Fondazione Torlonia was founded at the behest of Prince Alessandro Torlonia with the aim of preserving and promoting both the Torlonia Collection - the most prestigious private collection of Greek-Roman sculptures in the world - and Villa Albani Torlonia, one of the highest expressions of eighteenth-century taste. Together they constitute a “cultural heritage of the Family for humanity” to be handed down to future generations.
15 March - 29 June 2025
The Art Institute Chicago
Opening on March 15, Myth and Marble: Ancient Roman Sculpture from the Torlonia Collection will be on view at the Art Institute of Chicago, featuring 58 masterpieces from the Torlonia Collection—on display overseas for the very first time.
26 June 2024 - 11 November 2024
Torlonia Collection Masterpieces
Villa Albani Torlonia
Villa Albani Torlonia and its collections of ancient masterpieces were laid out according to a precise ground plan: statues, bas-reliefs and fountains – ensconced between the various buildings and gardens of the villa – rise like a vast architectural complex, in a choral composition of environments, landscapes and works of art that ‘live’ here as if forever waiting to be rediscovered.The classicist dream of Cardinal Alessandro Albani (1692–1779), who promoted the growing neoclassical movement thanks to the ‘Cenacle of Villa Albani’ – which included talents of the likes of Giovanni Battista Nolli, Giovanni Battista Piranesi and Johann Joachim Winckelmann – was preserved thanks to the Torlonia Family,who purchased the Villa in 1866, enlarging the collection and the gardens and restoring the most important cardinal residence of the eighteenth century, where in 1870 the Capture of Rome from the Papal States was signed.