Villa Sciarra (Rome)

Villa Sciarra is a villa and surrounding park in Rome, between the Trastevere, Gianicolo and Monteverde Vecchio districts. The estate began as farmland Cardinal Antonio Barberini purchased in 1653, passed to the Colonna di Sciarra family in 1811, who gave it its present name, and was later remade into a botanic garden and aviary by its final private owners, the American couple George Washington Wurts and Henrietta Tower, who decorated the grounds with sculpture taken from an eighteenth century Lombard villa near Milan. The architect Pio Piacentini designed the villa main entrance plaza, Piazzale Wurts. Henrietta Tower donated the property to Benito Mussolini in 1932 on condition that it become a public park, and it remains one today. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/