The Villa, owned by the Torlonia Family since 1866, was built in the middle of the eighteenth century by the architect Carlo Marchionni, according to a project strongly influenced by major figures – such as Giovanni Battista Nolli, Giovanni Battista Piranesi and Johann Joachim Winckelmann – in order to house the prestigious collection of antiquities (curated by Winckelmann himself) belonging to Cardinal Alessandro Albani, nephew of Pope Clement XI.