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Villa Aldobrandini

Carlo Maderno buildingsGardens in LazioHouses completed in 1550Italian Renaissance gardensVillas in Rome
Frascati 2 BW
Frascati 2 BW

The Villa Aldobrandini is a villa in Frascati, Italy. It is still owned and lived in by the Aldobrandini family, and known as Belvedere for its location overlooking the valley toward the city of Rome. It is the only grand Papal garden not owned by the state.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Villa Aldobrandini (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Villa Aldobrandini
Via Cardinal Massaia,

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Latitude Longitude
N 41.803444444444 ° E 12.683027777778 °
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Villa Aldobrandini

Via Cardinal Massaia
00044
Lazio, Italy
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Villa Lancellotti
Villa Lancellotti

Villa Lancellotti is a villa in Frascati, Italy, the nearest to the town centre. This villa was constructed in 1582 by Cardinal Bonanni. It was sold in 1617 to the banker Roberto Primo who constructed the 'teatro d'acqua' (water theatre) at the far end of the garden. The theatre is a direct copy of that at the nearby Villa Mondragone, for whom Primo acted as a banker. The clock, or 'orologio' was added in the nineteenth century while the villa was in the ownership of the Lancellotti family. The villa was restored in 1730, by the new owner Prince Pietro Piccolomini. In 1840 the Villa, called Villa Piccolomini, was sold to Francis Mehlem of Bavaria. The villa was bought and restored in 1866 by Prince Filippo Massimo Lancellotti and his wife Princess Elisabetta Borghese Aldobrandini. King Charles Emmanuel IV of Sardinia, lived here, and in October 1805 he received Pope Pius VII as a guest. In 1855 the famous writer George Sand rented the Villa Piccolomini from March 31 to April 19 and lived here with her son Maurice and her secretary Alexandre Manceau. The facade of the palace offers views of the garden from every floor, and panoramic views of Tuscolo hill. The inside contains rooms decorated with allegorical scenes of the countryside, older paintings by Ciro Ferri (1634–1689). The Italian garden encloses a nymphaeum from the 16th century. In the hall there is a mosaic in white and black tesseras found in Tuscolo hill, near the local Camaldolese monastery, in 1863. Statues found during the archeological excavation of Tusculum are the decoration of the Villa. A part of the gardens, now called "Ombrellino", today is a public park. Views of the garden facade of this villa can be had from Tuscolo's road. The villa is no longer open to the public.

Villa Torlonia (Frascati)
Villa Torlonia (Frascati)

The Villa Torlonia in Frascati is a villa belonging to the Torlonia family in Frascati, Italy. The land on which the villa was built originally belonged to the Abbey of Grottaferrata, which donated it in 1563 to Annibal Caro, who commissioned a small villa where he spent the last years of his life, translating the Aeneid. (In 1896, Prince Leopoldo Torlonia placed a memorial stone to remember this event.) In 1571 Beatrice Cenci bought the villa, which passed in 1596 to Cardinal Tolomeo Galli, Secretary of State under pope Gregory XIII, who commissioned the first enlargement. In 1607 Cardinal Scipione Borghese, Paul V's nephew, took possession of the Villa; he enlarged and embellished it. The waterworks used to feed the fountains of the Villa and the spectacular Water Theatre with a water flight of steps, date to 1607-25, designed and directed by Girolamo Fontana, Carlo Maderno and Flaminio Ponzio and completed at the base with a large retaining wall with niches and fountains. Other 17th and 18th century owners were the Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi, the Colonna family, the Conti family, and the Sforza Cesarini family. In the 19th century, the villa was acquired by Prince Torlonia whose name it commemorates. During the Napoleonic Age, the Torlonias profited by the Holy See's troubles and amassed a fortune by speculative transactions. Besides, they acquired titles and redeemed their plebeian extraction. The villa's grand Baroque terraced gardens and fountains provided subjects for watercolors by the American painter John Singer Sargent and more others painters. The old Villa was almost completely destroyed on September 8, 1943, when Frascati was bombed. During that period it housed the court martial and SS detachment. After that numerous partisans from the Alban Hills (Castelli Romani) area were transferred here and killed. In 1954, the Duke Andrea Torlonia made an exchange of real property with the mayor Micara of Frascati between the "Gardens" of villa Torlonia and the "Quadrato estate": now the gardens are a public park.

Villa Rufinella
Villa Rufinella

Villa Rufinella, also called Villa Tuscolana, is a villa in Frascati, Italy. Villa Rufinella is situated highest of the villas on the hill above the town of Frascati. It was built by Alessandro Ruffini, bishop of Melfi, in 1578, but during its history, the proprietors have made changes in different parts of it. In 1773 the villa became property of the pope. Architect Luigi Vanvitelli, commissioned by the Jesuits, gave the building its present appearance.In 1804 Pope Pius VII sold the Villa to prince Lucien Bonaparte during his self-imposed exile in Rome. Prince Lucien started the first excavations in the area of the villa and in the territory of Tusculum, sending many of the artifacts found to Paris to be sold on the antiques market. In 1817 a group of bandits of the famous band of robber Gasperoni, commanded by Tommaso Transerici, tried to kidnap the Prince Lucien during one of his parties in the gardens. Instead of the Prince, the bandits kidnapped one of his guests, an artist named Charles de Chatillôn, who softened the bandits by painting portraits of them during his captivity. The Prince was so annoyed by the attack that he sold the villa soon thereafter.In 1820 the villa was passed into the possession of Princess Maria Anna of Savoy. Queen Maria Christina of Naples and Sicily, wife of Charles Felix of Sardinia, inherited the villa bequeathed to the Princess Maria Anna, and lived there for long periods until 1843. In 1834, to commemorate his stay as a guest in the villa, Italian poet Giuseppe Gioachino Belli wrote a sonnet in Roman dialect called "La Rufinella". After 1848 the Villa became the property of King Vittorio Emanuele II, who sold it to the Lancellotti family.The villa suffered heavy damage during World War II (1943–1944). Since 1966 the Villa Rufinella has been owned by the Salesians of Don Bosco, a Roman Catholic religious society: they have restored the building and turned it into a conference hotel.