NEIGHBORHOODS : Discovering an International Spirit in the Chic ‘Beverly Hills of Rome’ : The little-known Parioli Quarter is sprinkled with embassies, villas and manicured gardens.

Although Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita” popularized the Via Veneto as the boulevard where the beautiful people meet, much of the movie was actually filmed slightly to the north in the Parioli Quarter. Lately, the Via Veneto has lost some of its gloss, while the Parioli remains a chic residential area--in essence, the Beverly Hills of Rome.

Guidebooks, even the best of them, never mention the Parioli. Frequented by foreign diplomats and upper-class Romans who live and work there, the quarter keeps a low profile. Yet for those who have already experienced the heady beauty of Rome’s world-renowned attractions, the Parioli--only a short bus ride away from the city center--offers a view of Roman life most tourists never see.

Bordered on all sides by the manicured gardens of secluded villas, its hills are sprinkled with foreign embassies. Here you can stroll peacefully on wide boulevards or meander on winding streets to discover tucked-away trattorie catering to the neighborhood clientele. Nearby are the Villa Giulia with its fine Etruscan Museum, the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art, and the best--but often bypassed--sections of the Villa Borghese gardens.

On my previous visits to the city, I’d always stayed right in the centro storico (historical center). There, under the shadow of the Colosseum, amid the bustle of cars, people and shops, was the delightful confusion I’d come to identify as Rome. But this time, when my favorite pensione was booked up, my concierge friend, Enzo, recommended a place “past the Villa Borghese.” Who knew what to expect? And so when the taxi dropped me off among the pine trees on Torquato Taramelli in the Parioli Quarter, I was surprised by its tranquil beauty.

Nothing zoomed by--neither Fiat nor motor scooter. From a lovely porch, I entered the Hotel Rivoli, which was filled that day with French businessmen. Across the way, half hidden by trees and flowers, were the modern condominiums of my prosperous Roman neighbors.

Until the 16th Century, the Quarter was still the countryside. Gradually, wealthy Popes and prominent families began to build their villas. Unlike the main residence in town, the villa was the suburban house and garden where one would go for some solitude and shade on a summer afternoon. It was the place to display one’s art collection and entertain guests in grand style. A stroll down almost any side street in the Parioli offers a glimpse of the many villas that remain here--although most are now foreign embassies.

By the 1890s, as urban Rome expanded, the Parioli became a part of the city proper. Building increased again after World War I and World War II, and by the late 1940s, the district re-established its reputation as the fashionable side of town.

The Parioli’s streets and piazzas are often named after foreign locales (like the Piazza Buenos Aires) or after mathematicians and scientists (like Piazza Euclide, named for the Greek mathematician Euclid). It’s a small but telling detail--for the quarter, more rational than Roman, has a truly international spirit.

At the Parioli’s northeast edge, there’s the ‘50s-style Piazza Euclide, where cars circle around the unusual Basilica dell’Immacolato Cuore di Maria (1955). Decidedly modern, the basilica looks more like a civic building than a sanctuary. Or venture west on the Viale Bruno Buozzi to the Piazza Ungheria (Hungary). Sipping cappuccino at the Hungarian Bar, you can contemplate the octagonal dome and bell towers of the Church of S. Roberto Bellarmino (1933). Unlike Rome’s baroque Piazza Navona or the ancient Piazza del Pantheon, neither of these spots are enclosed “people” spaces. They’re called piazzas only because main boulevards intersect there and people stop there for a spuntino-- a quick snack.

When one walks along the two grand boulevards that cut across the quarter, the Viale dei Parioli and the Viale Bruno Buozzi, there’s an echo of the Champs-Elysees, an aura of the cosmopolitan. But just a side street away, in the courtyards of the Villa Giulia, one can travel back in time to lavish, Renaissance papal Rome and experience the opulent lifestyle of some of the Parioli’s former inhabitants.

In 1551, Julius III, last of the Renaissance Popes, gathered together the leading artists of the Mannerist period--Giorgio Vasari, Bartolomeo Ammannati and Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola--to design his Villa Giulia on the old vineyard he had inherited from his uncle. He also signed on Michelangelo as a consultant. As it turned out, Michelangelo ended up functioning more as a peacemaker, for the Pope kept changing his mind about the designs. “If it hadn’t been for the entreaties of my great old friend (Michelangelo), I would have gone back to do some weeding in my garden,” said Vasari.

Luckily for us, Vasari stayed on the project and produced the courtyards that are the villa’s loveliest feature. The first courtyard’s splendid semicircular portico creates the illusion of a stage in an open-air theater. It would be easy to lose oneself there, looking up at the vault’s painted trellises of vines, roses and jasmine, but there’s more to see.

The second courtyard contains the villa’s real surprise. Inspired by poetic descriptions of fantastic gardens, the Villa Giulia’s nympheum is a three-level, sunken-marble fountain filled with statues of rural divinities and rustic grottoes. The nympheum is a wonder to behold--even if it’s a mere shell of its former glory now that many of its statues have been dispersed throughout Italy.

In 1889, the Villa Giulia was transformed into a museum for pre-Roman antiquities. A life-size reconstruction of the Temple of Alatri, an Etruscan sanctuary from the Second Century BC, now occupies the garden to the right of the nympheum. The Temple’s pre-Roman simplicity, like the elongated Etruscan bronze figures in the museum, contrasts sharply with the surrounding richness of the 16th-Century villa.

If the Villa Giulia is best known for its nympheum, the nearby Villa Borghese, a public park since 1901, has made its fame from its vast gardens. Most tourists approach the Villa Borghese from the Pincio Gardens above the Spanish Steps and never find the original 17th- Century villa or the park’s least-crowded and most interesting areas.

By approaching the Villa Borghese from the Parioli Quarter, however, you can sense what once was the villa’s real “garden magic.” Enter the gardens across from the National Gallery of Modern Art. Turn left on the Via Valle Giulia and you’ll soon reach the best of the villa’s grounds.

Underneath the umbrella pines, the wistful Piazza di Siena stands. Once every May, its racetrack comes alive with a horse race that recalls the Borghese family’s native Siena and its Palio, a medieval spectacle unlike anything ever enacted in Rome.

Off in the horizon lies the Casina dell’Orologio. This rustic house has four clocks, one on each face of its bell tower, reminding us that time has not stopped. Not far away, there’s the romantic Viale dei Pupazzi that leads to a baroque fountain where wild sea horses gallop in a shallow pool. And beyond the fountain, there’s L’Uccelliera, an aviary that enclosed the villa’s secret inner gardens.

If you wander off to the villa’s northernmost frontier, you’ll enter the Giardino Zoologico, where giraffes, antelopes and other animals roam in their natural habitat. Opened in 1911, the zoo recalls the fact that wild animals were once kept on the original villa grounds for the amusement of guests.

South from L’Uccelliera is the actual villa, now the Borghese Gallery. Cardinal Borghese, nephew to Pope Paul V, had the villa built in 1613 to house his exquisite sculpture collection.

An avid collector, Borghese used his papal connections to acquire a number of significant works, including some of Bernini’s finest sculptures. In the 18th Century, the cardinal’s paintings collection, including works of Botticelli, Raphael and Caravaggio, was transferred from his urban palazzo to this “country house.” It’s one of the finest private collections in Rome, and too often overlooked.

The haunting image of Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne sculpture stayed with me as I left the Borghese Gallery far behind, losing myself among the park’s wide, dusty avenues. Finally, I reached the edge of the Pincio Gardens, with its breathtaking view of Rome. Descending the Spanish Steps into the bustling piazza, I returned to that colorful pandemonium, this time bringing with me something new--the Rome of the Parioli.

GUIDEBOOK

Roaming the Parioli Quarter

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Where to stay: Hotel Rivoli, Via Torquato Taramelli 7, telephone locally 06-3224042. A lovely 55-room Best Western Hotel. Single, $120-$160; double, $150-$218.

Lord Byron, Via Giuseppe de Notaris 5, 06-3224541. Once a private villa, now one of the Parioli’s most elegant small hotels. Single, $252-$294; double, $273-$454.

Aldrovandi, Via Ulisse Aldrovandi 15, 06-3223993. A 139-room hotel with pool (also open to non-guests) and health club. Single, $294; double, $336.

Where to eat: Avoid the chic and pricey Le Jardin in the Lord Byron Hotel and go for seafood instead at the local Ristorante Archimede (near Piazza Euclide, at the corner of Via Archimede and Via Scarpelino, telephone 06-8078932. Be sure to try the orata , a delicious whitefish. Another culinary find is the Ristorante Ambasciata d’Abruzzo at Via Pietro Tacchini 26, 06-8078256. Near the Hotel Rivoli, this small, quiet restaurant offers some tasty Abruzzese specialties, along with standard Roman cuisine.

Transportation: Bus lines 26 and 52 run from the Parioli to the center of town.

Sightseeing:

--Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Modern e Contemporanea. Via delle Belle arti, 131. Core collection includes works by 19th-Century Tuscan macchiaioli painters and a variety of 20th-Century artists.

--Villa Ada. Just behind the Piazza Ungheria, its park, English gardens and jogging track are open to the public.

--Villa Glori. Just behind the Piazza Euclide, its park (with sculptures commemorating Italian war heroes) and jogging track (illuminated at night) are open to the public.

--Stadio Flaminio, Viale Tiziano. Just north of the Parioli in the Flaminio quarter, this Olympic stadium was the site of World Cup soccer matches in 1990.

For more information: Contact the Italian Government Travel Office, 360 Post St., Suite 801, San Francisco 94108, (415) 392-6206.