Dior show at Villa Albani Torlonia: the garden where Neoclassicism was born

In the garden that served as a laboratory of Neoclassicism—where Winckelmann and Cardinal Albani reinvented the dialogue between ancient art and nature—the show is a tribute to the cultural ties that have linked Italy to the Maison since 1947

Maria Grazia Chiuri’s Dior Cruise 2026 collection on the runway at Villa Albani Torlonia

On 27 May 2025, Villa Albani Torlonia will open its gates to fashion for the first time as Maison Dior presents its Cruise 2026 collection, designed by Rome-born Maria Grazia Chiuri, whose aesthetic looks to Classicism as an inexhaustible source of inspiration. The choice of venue is anything but accidental. In the same garden that served as a Neoclassical workshop—where Winckelmann and Cardinal Albani re-imagined the interplay between antiquity and nature—the runway show pays homage to the cultural bonds uniting Italy and the House since 1947, when Christian Dior entrusted Italian artisans and weavers with bringing many of his creations to life.

An unexpected green theatre behind Via Salaria

Step off Rome’s frenetic Via Salaria and, beyond a curtain of pines and cypress, a perfectly clipped parterre suddenly opens like a stage. This is the garden of Villa Albani Torlonia, a seven-hectare enclave conceived in the mid-18th century as a living catalogue of antiquity and soon hailed by visitors on the Grand Tour as “the most elegant garden in Europe.”

Cardinal Albani’s antiquarian dream (1747-1763)

The story begins in 1747, when Cardinal Alessandro Albani—Nephew of Pope Clement XI, diplomat and obsessive collector—bought a vineyard just outside the Aurelian Walls. He commissioned architect Carlo Marchionni (with cartographer Giovanni Battista Nolli and engraver Giovanni Battista Piranesi at his side) to create a villa that was more museum than residence, expressly designed to house thousands of marbles recovered from new excavations financed by the cardinal himself.

Winckelmann and the birth of Neoclassicism

In 1759 the German scholar Johann Joachim Winckelmann arrived as Albani’s librarian. He urged the patron to fuse architecture, sculpture and vegetation into a didactic itinerary “leaving no empty space,” as he wrote in 1766. The resulting ensemble—crowned by Anton Raphaël Mengs’s fresco Parnassus in the main gallery—became the ideological cradle of Neoclassicism, shaping taste from St Petersburg to Philadelphia.

A garden “alla francese” with Roman flair

Marchionni levelled the former vineyard to carve out an Italian-French hybrid parterre: eight oak avenues converge on a vast green carpet embroidered with low box hedges in rococo arabesques. The sight-line runs unbroken from the garden fountain up to the Casino Nobile’s loggia, creating the telescopic perspective popularised at Versailles yet scaled to the Roman suburbs.

Architectural follies: Kaffeehaus and scenic hemicycle

At the far end of the parterre, visitors encounter the Kaffeehaus—an eleven-bay semicircular pavilion completed in 1764 with a Doric colonnade, where Albani served chocolate and concertos under rose-coloured stucco vaults. The structure forms a theatrical back-drop that “embraces” the garden and frames statues of emperors in dialogue with pagan deities, turning every promenade into a curated tableau.

Wander off the formal axis and paths meander through shrubbery to the Temple of Diana, an Ionic shrine deliberately half-ruined to stir melancholic reflection on time and antiquity—a scholarly wink to the capricci of Piranesi.

Botany as scenography

The planting palette rehearses the “Roman countryside” in miniature: umbrella pines provide high canvases of shade; evergreen holm-oaks, laurel and arbutus create dark theatrical wings; while box (Buxus sempervirens) is shorn to 40 cm to outline the parterre’s embroidery. Albani even ordered cedars of Lebanon—then a rarity—to punctuate the skyline, and contrasted evergreens with deciduous species to keep the scene verdant all year.

From Albani to Torlonia: a 19th-century makeover

When financial titan Prince Alessandro Torlonia bought the property in 1866, he retained Albani’s layout but refreshed the scenography with pressurised fountains, re-gravelled avenues and systematic restoration of weather-beaten marbles, ensuring the villa remained a must-see for monarchs and diplomats of the newborn Kingdom of Italy.

War, neglect and a 21st-century renaissance

Requisitions during World War II and post-war smog left statues blackened and parterres forlorn. A turning-point came with the foundation of Fondazione Torlonia (2014) and a multi-million-euro conservation plan that has already restored Mengs’s Parnassus and hundreds of sculptures. In 2024 the new Antiquarium in the former stables showcased freshly cleaned masterpieces, signalling a long-term commitment to open the estate—cautiously—to the public.

How (and when) you can visit

Villa Albani Torlonia remains private, but the foundation now accepts small groups (max 10) for two-hour tours led by an art historian. Visits are free; a suggested €50 donation funds ongoing restorations. Requests must be emailed using a downloadable form, and dates fill up within hours.