Plagued by loneliness in his later years, he hosted his philosopher colleagues at the villa, including his Harvard classmate, George Santayana.
Under the control of Nazi Germany, in 1944, the villa underwent bombardment by machine gun and artillery fire of the Allied forces, causing significant damage to the house and gardens.
J. Donald Freeze, S.J., who promised that the university would pay the fee to keep a light at her son's grave lit, as he had died and was buried in Fiesole.
[5] Today, the villa hosts students during the academic year and the summer as well as faculty from the main campus of Georgetown University.
To accomplish this, he had to depart from the traditional Italian Renaissance garden style of the 15th century due to the steep grade on which the villa was built and the narrow strip of land he had available to him.
Instead, visitors would enter through the more elaborate portal from the north, which take them into the villino's loggia and would allow them to proceed through the gardens and across the various levels as Pinsent intended.
Perennial and seasonal plants, potted lemon trees and jasmine, which covers the wall under the balcony, decorate this part of the garden.
[8] This path continues past the villa building and ends in a grove of holm oaks planted in rows, which culminates in a rusticated grotto.
Parallel to this path runs another bordered by iris, lavender, and roses, which separates the green space designed by Pinsent from the open countryside.
[8] This layout represented Pinsent's vision of gardens, in which one would be able to pass gradually from an architecturally organized space to the natural landscape of meadows and olive groves at its borders.