The Villa Borghese provincial nature reserve is a privately owned protected area in the centre of Nettuno, established in 1999; it is the town's only green space. It includes the villa, also known as Villa Bell'Aspetto or Villa Costaguti, and its park. It was built in the seventeenth century for Cardinal Vincenzo Costaguti, from a wealthy family of Genoese bankers settled in Rome; the Costaguti kept it until 1818, when debts forced them to sell it to Giovanni Torlonia, and in 1832 it was bought by Prince Camillo Borghese, husband of Pauline Bonaparte. It has belonged to the Borghese ever since.
What to see
The villa stands commandingly on a hill facing the sea, surrounded by a large park laid out in 1840, with an Italian garden, an orange garden and woodland. The centuries-old trees and the box and laurel hedges of the Renaissance-style garden mix with elements of a medieval garden, such as aromatic and fruit plants, while the palms recall the Romantic gardens of the nineteenth century; the scrub has English oaks, holm oaks, cork oaks and stone pines.
The area lies on a cliff of Pliocene macco stone rich in fossils. Beneath the villa are tunnels cut into the rock, once used as a refuge during Saracen raids and then as cellars; enlarged during the Second World War, they served as the headquarters of the United States Army during the Anzio landing of 1944.
Visiting
As it is private property, openings and visits should be checked beforehand. There are also many ruins under the villa and park, because the area was part of ancient Antium.
Our editors' tip
In the summer and autumn of 1903 Gabriele D'Annunzio was a guest of the Borghese in this very villa.
