Papal summer residence

Castle Gandolf , town (1991 pop. 6,784), in Latium, central Italy, in the Alban Hills, overlooking Lake Albano. Possibly occupying the site of ancient Alba Longa, it is the papal summer residence. The papal palace (17th cent.), its magnificent gardens, the Vatican observatory (founded 1936), and the Villa Barbarini enjoy extraterritorial rights. The Church of St. Thomas of Villanova was designed (17th cent.) by Bernini.

Historical signs
Historical  Numerosi has individualized the place of the ancient city of Albalonga, that was to head of the Latin confederation, with that of the today's Castelgandolfo; others put the ancient Latin city instead beyond the Lake Albano near Palazzolo. According to the tradition the ancient city of Albalonga was founded by the descendants of Enea. The city reached a period of great thin splendor to have the control on twenty-nine colonies. It progressively suffered subsequently the supremacy in Rome, up to when, accused of betrayal in a war in Rome against the Etruschis it was the destruction definite of it: the temples were saved, the population was transported in Rome and the territory Albano you/he/she was assigned to the population of Aricine. In the republican period the Ager Albanus was busy from a big number of ladylike villas. The lake set to the center of this system insediativo constituted the medium for the connections of the various ownerships. During the imperial period Domiziano, built a new and grandiose villa on the western slope of the lake. Divided the slant of the hill in four great terrazzamenti. The central nucleus of the villa was constituted from the building, the racecourse, the cisterns and the theater. The ownerships of these places constituted her/it "mass Caesariana" and you/they are mentioned in the list of the possessiones of the Patrimony of St. Pietro under Gregorio II.
     

La first modern community, therefore, founds him on an agricultural economy and under the religious influence. The first news of the region "Cucurutus", correspondent to the today's Mountain I Cheat, they are had in a 1030 document, in which it speaks of possessiones in this place of the nuns of S. Ciriaco in Rome. The news of the inhabited area is in a Bead of May 1037 of the Pope Benedetto the Ninth, with which it granted to the abbey of Grottaferrata, founded few decades by the Basiliano S. Nile before, an earth it posts "intra civitatem Albanensem on the spot here vocatur supra Cucurutti". a Church of St. Michael was pointed out, besides reference that removes every doubt on the identification of the place with the actual territory of Castelgandolfo, the same one that will be the old parish of Castelgandolfo up to Six hundred. In the same Bead he affirmed that the inhabitants constituted a community to if stante, incentrata on the Church of St. Michael and dependent from the abbey of Grottaferrata. You treated therefore of an agricultural community that, paying a canon to the Monastery, it had his/her liberty since the year 1000 and that subsequently, also under the protection of the Barons of the various Castles, it preserved an autonomy in the government of the public thing, through the concession of Statutes more times renewed and modified. He/she is not known when precisely and in what circumstances the Gandolfis took possession him some place. Their Castle already existed in the century XII. In a 1244 document it results in fact that the Castle belonged to his/her brothers Simone and Paul de Candulphis which a Building and a Curia possessed you. In the XIII century enters possession of the Savellis. In fact in 1279, the cardinal Iacopo Savelli, not yet pope Onorio IV it enumerated among his/her possessiones, Castel Savello Albano, Fajda and a "castrum quod dicitur turris de Candulphis."
     

Castle Gandolf and the relative community, to less brief periods in which it suffers looting or it passes under the control of other families, feud of the Savellis remains up to 1597, when you/he/she is surrendered with forced sale to the Apostolic Chamber. Later, in 1608, inalienable ownership of the Saint is declared Center. Decisive they were the interventions of Maffeo Barberini that, become Pontiff with the name of Urbano VIII, it transformed the ancient Fortress of the Savellis, whose project was submitted to Charles Maderno. Contemporarily the amplification of the small suburb happens set to the ancient Fortress. With Urbano VIII the predominance of the Barberinis expands him that purchased the grounds and the vineyards in the area of the Villa of Domiziano and on these they built their new villa. Also under the Pontificate of Alexander VII it continues consistent l ' activated housebuilding through the amplification in 1660 both of the Building I Pontificate that of the external boundaries. In this period Bernini planned the Church of St. Thomas of Villanova and the before plaza the Pontifical Building. Beginning from the beginning of the century XVIII the inhabited nucleus considerably became larger since Castelgandolfo was place of stay of quite a lot Roman families: it is to remember Villa Torlonia that rose on project of Valadier or the Villa of the Cardinal Cybo. From the period of the invasion of the French troops it begins a phase of slow I degrade some inhabited area and above all of the ownerships of the Saint Center, that is accented in the inclusive period among 1870 and 1926, when the Lateran Pacts was signed, besides the Villa Barberini becomes of ownership of the Saint Center. Beginning from the Pontificate of Pious XI set out jobs of restauration on the ownerships pontificie.

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