Villa Giustiniani Massimo, Historic villa near Lateran Square, Rome, Italy

Villa Giustiniani Massimo is a yellow casino with a symmetrical facade set behind a courtyard. A row of square columns forms a covered portico at ground level, with a pale standing statue in a shallow fountain basin at its centre; above rise several storeys of evenly spaced rectangular windows, some with small balconies and air-conditioning units below the sills. A straight gravel path bordered by low green hedges leads to the building.

Vincenzo Giustiniani, Marquis of Bassano and depositary of the Apostolic Chamber, bought a vineyard here in 1605 and had a casino built, attributed to Carlo Lambardi. The Massimo family took over in 1802 and had the three ground-floor rooms frescoed by Nazarene painters between 1817 and 1829. The Lancellotti bought the villa in 1848 and sold the park for building in 1871; since 1948 it has housed the Custody of the Holy Land's delegation for Italy.

The three ground-floor rooms were frescoed for Carlo Massimo between 1817 and 1829 by Nazarene painters. Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld painted the Orlando Furioso episodes, Johann Friedrich Overbeck the Gerusalemme Liberata with Führich, and in the Dante room Philipp Veit painted Paradise on the vault while Joseph Anton Koch did Hell and Purgatory on the walls.

The villa sits on Via Matteo Boiardo in Rome and now serves as the headquarters of the Delegation of the Holy Land Custody. Access is not always possible, so it is worth checking in advance before making the trip.

The colossal "Statue of Justinian" in the courtyard fountain is a pastiche: in 1638 Prince Andrea Giustiniani had Arcangelo Gonnelli fit a head modelled on a youthful portrait of Marcus Aurelius onto a headless Greek marble torso, to support the family's claimed descent from the emperor. About four metres tall, it was moved to its present spot in 1742 by Giovan Battista Giustiniani, as the epigraph on the south side of the casino records.