Concert in Fontana dell’organo - Villa d’Este in Tivoli - Saverio Pepe

Fontana dell’Organo is named after an elaborate water-operated organ hidden behind its complex architecture. Its construction started in 1568, but it was completed only in 1611. In its initial design a statue was placed at its centre. It represented Ephesian Diana for today’s archaeologists, but for Cardinal Ippolito and Ligorio it was a symbol of Nature and Abundance. In 1611 Cardinal Alessandro d’Este felt it was not proper to give such prominence to the statue of a goddess and he moved it to a remote part of the gardens. It was replaced by a sort of small temple. The organ was designed by Claude Venard and Pope Gregory XIII was so impressed by its sounds that he personally congratulated the engineer. In 1851 Cardinal Gustav von Hohenloe rented Villa d’Este where he lived until his death in 1896. After a long period of neglect some of the fountains were reactivated. Composer Franz Liszt was among the cardinal’s guests and in 1877 he wrote one of his most popular piano pieces on the different sounds of the fountains (Les Jeux d’Eau à la Villa d’Este).