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In addition to the completion of Raphael's unfulfilled commissions, Giulio immediately received independent architectural assignments. In 1520-21 he had the opportunity to capitalize on the fashion for classical suburban villas, which the Villa Madama had helped to create, when Baldassare Turini commissioned a residence (now known as the Villa Lante) on the Janiculum Hill. The setting suggested a classical conceit: it was the site of a villa thought to be owned by the Roman writer Martial (c. AD 40-104), a link that Turini wanted to celebrate. Giulio's capacity to enunciate modern building language through an antique vocabulary gave him perfect credentials for Turini's task. (Giulio's role in the design of the villa is controversial; it has been also suggested that the project was begun by Raphael).
The design acknowledged the building's ancient predecessor by following the outline of its ruins and the loggia (later enclosed) on its extant foundations. The details of the structure, however, were not calculated to conform to the Roman canon. The villa is high and narrow, with vertical continuity stressed in the placement of the orders, which are delicately scaled and without massive projection. The pristine Doric order of the ground-floor is surmounted by elegantly shallow Ionic pilasters, whose volutes swell only slightly from the surface of the wall. The lightness conveyed by the dainty proportions of the orders is apparent also in the simplified entablature - just an architrave and cornice - and is continued in the tall, narrow arches of the loggia. The canonic orders here begin to be treated visually as independent from their structural purposes, and this liberation offered the architect new expressive possibilities.
Today, the property is owned by the Republic of Finland, and the building houses the Institutum Romanum Finlandiae and the Embassy of Finland to the Holy See.
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