In its magnificent dress, Villa Torlonia is open to the public through eyes and words of those who lived and enjoyed it in the forties of the nineteenth century.
In those years Prince Alessandro Torlonia became famous all around Europe for the splendor and magnificence of his celebrations.
This was the ancient way, a rich middle class man could get recognition and social strengthening the founder Giovanni longed.

"Passaggi Segreti" welcomes its audience during the second of the two big parties in 1842, organized for the erection of two obelisks.
If the first one was reserved for nobles and cardinals, attended by about seven thousand guests, including Pope Gregory XVI, the second party, much more popular, more than twenty thousand people attended all kinds games, banquets and entertainment.

Among these people, there was the poet Giuseppe Gioacchino Belli, who praised "fireworks, firing mortars, aerostatic globes, music", as well noted thanks to the "eight barrels of wine for a total of 16,384 pieces (...), drunk people fill in the villa", "meanwhile, the promoter of the bacchanal, from marble balconies, enjoy the universal hangover" because "thanks to the orgy of so many drunkards, he saw his name made immortal, among the mud of fourteen districts".

Like Stendhal said, Prince Alessandro Torlonia lived "for the arts and for the money", but also, as tells Belli again, for the joy to listen the people call him "the little saver of Rome".