The Roman villa was an elaborately decorated suburban casino or (lodge), that stood only for some decades after completion in 1630, just at the then-outskirts of Rome (now Pigneto Sacchetti train stop) at the foot of Monte Mario.

From the top rampart of the garden entrance, one should have been able to glimpse above the surrounding pine forest (pigneto) the domes of St Peter's Basilica and central Rome.

The villa suburbana was commissioned by the Florentine Marchese Marcello Sacchetti [it], papal treasurer of the profligate Barberini Pope Urban VIII.

We can only reconstruct the villa from etchings, paintings, plans, and scant architectural ruins left, although the findings generally agree.

The favored garden approach had three tiers, not unlike Vignola's Villa Giulia from the previous century; daring symmetric flights of stairs gave drama to the entrance and flanked a large basin-fountain with cascading waters and a nymphaeum.