Casina delle Civette, Art Nouveau house museum in Villa Torlonia, Rome, Italy

Casina delle Civette is a former Torlonia residence in Villa Torlonia, Rome, now a museum. Its varied masonry combines rough tan brick, rusticated stone and pale-pink stucco. A tall tapering brick tower with a circular opening rises behind a two-storey pink corner block roofed in green tiles; an ornate wooden balcony projects from the brick wall, and a steep shingled pyramidal roof with a green-capped lantern sits above a stone base with small arched windows.

Giuseppe Jappelli designed the building in 1840 for Alessandro Torlonia as a rustic structure with tufa facing and interiors painted to imitate rocks and wooden boards. In 1908 Giovanni Torlonia junior had it transformed into a "medieval village" by Enrico Gennari, adding windows, loggias, porticoes and turrets with majolica. Vincenzo Fasolo added Art Nouveau elements, including glazed terracotta roof tiles, in 1917. After wartime damage and a 1991 fire, restoration from 1992 to 1997 gave it its current appearance.

The owl motif that gives the house its name entered in 1916, when two stained-glass panels with stylised owls among ivy, designed by Duilio Cambellotti, were installed; owl decorations then multiplied throughout the rooms. Other windows were made to designs by Umberto Bottazzi, Paolo Paschetto and Vittorio Grassi, with subjects such as swans, peacocks and butterflies.

The museum occupies the Casina's ground floor and upper floor, reached by a wooden staircase from the entrance hall; the architrave above the door reads "Sapienza e Solitudine". The 1992-1997 restoration followed wartime damage and a 1991 fire, so some ceramics and boiseries are lost: wood panelling survives only in the dining room. The building stands inside Villa Torlonia park, entered from Via Nomentana.

The house's name comes from owl motifs in the stained glass windows, particularly two stylized owls nestled among ivy vines. This symbol was not merely decorative but also reflected the artistic preferences of the family who inhabited it.