Villa Doria Pamphili

This guide to Villa Doria Pamphili in Rome begins on January 21, 1647, the day Camillo Pamphili, nephew of Pope Innocent X, resigned his cardinal's hat to marry a wealthy widow. It follows the fury of his mother, the formidable Olimpia Maidalchini, and the banishment that sent him to build on the Janiculum hill. You'll hear about sculptor Alessandro Algardi's cascading gardens, laid out through the 1650s on a stretch long called Bel Respiro, Beautiful Breath. Walk the shaded paths where the family's fortune once played out.