Villa Lituania is a villa in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

, at Via Nomentana 116. Located next to Villa Mirafiori, the former villa of

Rosa Vercellana Rosa Vercellana, 1st Countess of Mirafiori and Fontanafredda (3 June 1833 – 26 December 1885), commonly known as ‘Rosina’ and, in Piedmontese, as La Bela Rosin, was the mistress and later wife of Victor Emmanuel II, King of Italy. Despi ...

, it housed the Lithuanian embassy from 1933 to 1940. After the occupation of Lithuania, it was transferred to the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

in August 1940 and today it houses a consular section of the Embassy of Russia. After regaining its independence in 1990, Lithuania demanded to be compensated for the loss in 1940. After prolonged diplomatic negotiations, Italy and Lithuania agreed on compensation in February 2013. For Lithuania, it was the last unrecovered diplomatic property of the interwar republic.

History

The villa, built by George Blunt Page (1857–1930), descendant of John Page and director of

Banca Commerciale Italiana Banca Commerciale Italiana (COMIT), founded in 1894, was once one of the largest banks in Italy. In 1999 it merged with a banking group consisting of Cassa di Risparmio delle Provincie Lombarde (aka Cariplo; est. 1823) and Banco Ambroveneto, wh ...

, and his wife Maria Luisa Roca (1881–1974), was known as Villa Maria Luisa or Villa Page and had a park. The building and park were designed by Pio Piacentini and his son

Marcello Piacentini Marcello Piacentini (8 December 1881 – 19 May 1960) was an Italian urban theorist and one of the main proponents of Italian Fascist architecture. Biography Born in Rome, he was the son of architect Pio Piacentini. When he was only 26, he was ...

. Lithuanian ambassador Voldemaras Čarneckis, a close friend of the Page family, arranged a below-market rental of the villa and moved the Lithuanian embassy from its much smaller premises on Via Nicolò Porpora in 1933. In July 1937, Lithuania purchased the building for 3 million lire (one-third paid upfront, the rest by installments through 1952). In 1938, the embassy hosted a celebration of the 20th anniversary of Lithuania's independence which attracted 800 guests. After Lithuania was occupied by the

in June 1940, Lithuanian ambassador

Stasys Lozoraitis :''See Stasys Lozoraitis Jr. for an article about a son of Stasys Lozoraitis.'' Stasys Lozoraitis (born: September 5, 1898 - December 24, 1983) was a prominent Lithuanian diplomat and politician who served as the Foreign Minister of Lithuania f ...

did not recognize the new Soviet regime and continued to represent independent Lithuania. He refused to hand over the villa to Russian diplomats. He protested to the

Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation ( it, Ministero degli affari esteri e della cooperazione internazionale or ''MAECI'') is the foreign ministry of the government of the Italian Republic. It is also known as the Farnesin ...

and attempted to transfer the property to the Lithuanian envoy to the Holy See, Stasys Girdvainis. After two months of diplomatic pressure, Lozoraitis moved out of the villa on August 26. Lithuanians took all movable property (archives, furniture, vehicles, etc.), cut electric wires, and even mowed flowers in the gardens. They left only a

flag of Lithuania The national flag of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos vėliava) consists of a horizontal tricolour of yellow, green, and red. It was adopted on 25 April 1918 during Lithuania's first period of independence (in the 20th century) from 1918 to 1940, wh ...

decorated with black ribbons. In June 1941, after the

German invasion of the Soviet Union Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named afte ...

, Russians became an enemy of Italy and had to abandon the villa leaving it under the protection of the Embassy of Sweden, as a representative of a neutral country. Seizing the opportunity, a group of Lithuanians returned to the villa and attempted to return it to the Lithuanian embassy. They found the villa in a deplorable state: chancellery was converted into two classrooms, all other rooms had beds and small corners for food preparation, ceiling suffered damage from a burst water pipe. The seizure of the building provoked protests from the Italian and Swedish diplomats, and Lithuanians left the villa the next day. The Soviet Union made two installment payments (4.3% of the purchase price) before defaulting on the mortgage. The building was foreclosed by the bank and sold to a real estate company. The Italian government purchased the villa and transferred it to the Soviet Union in 1945. In 1959, the Lithuanian Pontifical College established a guest house in Rome and named it Villa Lituania after the former embassy building. After Lithuania regained independence in March 1990, Lithuanian diplomats and top-ranking state officials demanded that Italian authorities return the former legation building to Lithuania, or compensate the loss in cash or real estate. In 2007, Lithuanian artists Nomeda and Gediminas Urbonas presented an art project dedicated to Villa Lituania at

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

. After prolonged negotiations and several rejected proposals, Lithuania agreed to accept the fourth floor of Palazzo Blumenstihl in February 2013. The agreement is valid for 99 years and has a renewal option. The premises measure and are valued at 9 million euros. The Lithuanian embassy officially moved in to the building on March 28, 2019.

References

{{Reflist, refs= {{cite journal, url=http://www.baltictimes.com/print_article/15549/ , title=Italian minister pledges to find solution to embassy row , journal=The Baltic Times , date= May 31, 2006 {{cite web, author=Baltic News Service, author-link=Baltic News Service, title=Lietuva ir Italija pasirašė sutartį dėl kompensacijos už tarpukario ambasadą , url=http://www.delfi.lt/news/daily/lithuania/lietuva-ir-italija-pasirase-sutarti-del-kompensacijos-uz-tarpukario-ambasada.d?id=60728112 , publisher= Delfi.lt , date=February 21, 2013 , accessdate=2014-07-06 {{cite book, first=Alberta , last=Campitelli , first2=Anna Paola , last2=Agati , title=Green delights: the villas, gardens and historic parks belonging to the city of Rome , url=https://books.google.com/books?ei=gMy5U4vpGMqtyATngIGoCg&id=VlvqAAAAMAAJ&dq=%22Villa+Page%22+lituania , year=2005 , publisher=De Luca , isbn=9788880166467 , page=129 {{cite book, url=http://www.villalituania.eu/memorie/68-2011-11-21-153716 , title=Diplomatas par excellence Kazys Lozoraitis , editor-first=Giedrė , editor-last=Jankevičiūtė , location=Kaunas , publisher=Artuma , isbn=978-9986-461-56-2 , year=2008 {{cite journal , first=Danutė , last=Jokubėnienė, title=Rekviem "Villa Lituania" Romoje , url=http://www.lrytas.lt/ekstra/archyvas/2004/0517/ , journal=Ekstra , date=May 17–23, 2004 , pages=24–27 , issue=284 , volume=19 {{cite web, url=http://it.mfa.lt/index.php?197650055 , title="Villa Lituania" klausimas , publisher=Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania in Italy , accessdate=2014-07-06 {{cite journal, url= http://www.villalituania.eu/memorie/70-2009-11-21-154205 , title=Kaip Italija iškraustė Lietuvą iš "Villa Lituania". Ambasadoriaus Kazio Lozoraičio atsiminimai , date=June–July 2006 , journal=Pasaulio lietuvis , issn=1732-0135 {{citation , url=http://assembly.coe.int/ASP/Doc/XrefViewHTML.asp?FileID=8614&Language=EN , title=Former embassies of the Baltic states on the territory of some Council of Europe member states , first=Göran , last=Magnusson , date=16 July 1998 , publisher=Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, Council of Europe {{cite journal, title=There'll Be a Page Out of U. S. History, Member of Famed Family to Be Italian , journal=Reading Times , url=https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/48196914/ , date=September 29, 1933 , page=7

External links

Art project ''Villa Lituania'' at Venice Biennale
Lithuania–Soviet Union relations Foreign relations of Italy Lituania