At 184 hectares, it is the largest park in the city of Rome. Within it stands the Casino del Bel Respiro or Algardi, which is the official seat of the Italian government. A country residence of the Pamphilj family, under the pontificate of Innocent X (1644-1655) it took on the appearance of a sumptuous noble country residence.
In 1849 the villa was the scene of one of the bloodiest battles for the defense of the Roman Republic: French troops occupied Villa Corsini on June 2, and the following day Garibaldi's troops tried in vain to recapture it. During one of the assaults Colonel Angelo Masina died and Goffredo Mameli, author of the verses of the Italian national anthem, was mortally wounded.
The villa remained the property of the Doria Pamphilj family until the early decades of the 20th century. In 1939, the City of Rome initiated the first expropriations, and the Italian State acquired the original nucleus in 1957; part of the current 184 hectares were acquired by the City of Rome in 1965 and 1971, finally making possible the opening to the public of this marvelous park in various stages, concluded on May 1, 1971.
To date, the complex consists of three parts: "pars urbana," including the Palace and surrounding gardens; "pars fructuaria," consisting of the pine grove; and "pars rustica," which is considered the part of the actual agricultural estate. There is also a watercourse in the interior that reaches into a lake with an island in the middle with an elliptical shape. A very important feature of the villa are the gardens, which are innovative compared to the canons of the time. These are designed on two orthogonal axes, the first perpendicular to the aqueduct and the second parallel.
Within the park are important archaeological sites from the Roman and medieval ages, such as the Trajan-Paul Aqueduct, located at the northern boundary along the Via Aurelia Antica, while at the Casino del Bel Respiro and the Casale di Giovio, there are considerable funerary structures, also from the Roman age that produced vases, sarcophagi and inscriptions that have been added to the Pamphili collection .