Villa Lancellotti is a villa in Frascati

Frascati

Frascati is a town and comune in the province of Rome in the Lazio region of central Italy. It is located south-east of Rome, on the Alban Hills close to the ancient city of Tusculum. Frascati is closely associated with science, being the location of several international scientific...

, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, 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

Villa Mondragone

Villa Mondragone is a patrician villa originally in the territory of the Italian commune of Frascati , now in the territory of Monte Porzio Catone...

, 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 Peter Piccolomini. In 1840 the Villa, called Villa Piccolomini

Piccolomini

Piccolomini is the name of an Italian noble family, which was prominent in Siena from the beginning of the 13th century onwards. In 1220, Engelberto d'Ugo Piccolomini received the fief of Montertari in Val d'Orcia from the emperor Frederick II as a reward for services rendered...

, 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

Aldobrandini

The Aldobrandini are an Italian noble family from Florence, with close ties to the Vatican. Its Roman fortunes were made when Ippolito Aldobrandini became pope under the name Pope Clement VIII. He arranged the marriage that linked the Aldobrandini with the Roman family of Pamphili...

.

King Charles Emmanuel IV of Sardinia

Charles Emmanuel IV of Sardinia

Charles Emmanuel IV was King of Sardinia from 1796 to 1802. He abdicated in favour of his brother Victor Emmanuel I...

, lived here, and in October 1805 he received Pope Pius VII

Pope Pius VII

Pope Pius VII , born Barnaba Niccolò Maria Luigi Chiaramonti, was a monk, theologian and bishop, who reigned as Pope from 14 March 1800 to 20 August 1823.-Early life:...

 as a guest.

In 1855 the famous writer George Sand

George Sand

Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, later Baroness Dudevant , best known by her pseudonym George Sand , was a French novelist and memoirist.-Life:...

 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

Ciro Ferri

Ciro Ferri was an Italian Baroque sculptor and painter, the chief pupil and successor of Pietro da Cortona.He was born in Rome, where he began working under Cortona and with a team of artists in the extensive fresco decorations of the Quirinal Palace...

 (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

Tusculum

Tusculum is a ruined Roman city in the Alban Hills, in the Latium region of Italy.-Location:Tusculum is one of the largest Roman cities in Alban Hills. The ruins of Tusculum are located on Tuscolo hill—more specifically on the northern edge of the outer crater ring of the Alban volcano...

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.

Sources

• Wells Clara Louisa - The Alban Hills, Vol. I: Frascati - 1878 publisher: Barbera, Rome, Italy - OCLC 21996251

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Further reading

• Renato Lefevre, 'Appunti sulla prima costruzione di Villa Lancellotti a Frascati', L'urbe, 38, 1975, pp. 36–48.

• Tracy L. Ehrlich, Landscape and Identity in Early Modern Rome: Villa Culture at Frascati in the Borghese Era, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

• Romano Crescenzi, 'Villa Lancellotti', in Luigi Devoti, Le Ville nel Lazio, Rome: Anemone Purpurea editrice, 2006, pp. 177–187.