Scipione Borghese: Actor protagonist pe pământurile tuscolane

"Scipione Borghese: Leading Actor on Tuscan Lands. The contribution focuses on the figure of Cardinal Scipione Borghese (1577-1633) and on the role he playedas patron of the arts in the Colli Albani area, in particular in the city of Frascati (located 20 kilometers east of Rome). The cardinal, nephew of Pope Paul V Borghese and very important personality of the Roman curia, is investigated hereas a promoter of the arts and in particular as the patron of many architectural and landscape arrangements made on the hills of Frascati. The villas purchased by the Borghese family under went enlargement, reconstruction and decoration (such as Villa Taverna, Villa Torlonia, Villa Mondragone and Villa Grazioli). The cardinal and the Villas moved a lot of money and many artistic workers (architects, painters, sculptors, plasterers, masons, etc.) that made Frascati the Petrified testimony of the economic, political and cultural ideas of the Borghese himself. Keywords: Scipione Caffarelli Borghese; Paolo V Borghese; Flaminio Ponzio; Girolamo Rainaldi; Giovanni Vasanzio; Matthäus Greuter; Rome; Frascati; Alban Hills; Monte Porzio Catone; Burghesianum, patronage; Villa "

Investigating the “Villa degli Antonini” at Lanuvium

The archaeological site known as the “Villa degli Antonini” lies in the SE sector of the Alban Hills within the modern comune of Genzano di Roma and some 1.5 km north of the ancient urban center of Lanuvium (Lanuvio) (fig. 1). It is c.400 m south of the Via Appia between that road's 18th and 19th milestones (it seems to have been connected to the Via Appia by a side road traceable in historic aerial photographs and of which a section is still preserved) and c.1 km south of the rim of the volcanic lake of Nemi, from which the ground slopes gently down towards the coastal plain of Latium. To the west and east are two scoria cones, Monte Due Torri and Montecagnoletto, the latter of which was once separated from our site by a N-S valley c.100 m in width.

Light on the water: ritual deposit of lamps in Lake Nemi

Lake Nemi, in a crater of volcanic origins, lies along the via Appia c.30 km south of Rome in the region of the Alban Hills. The basin as a whole has a high density of archeological evidence, most noticeably the sanctuary of Diana on the NE and the imperial villa on the SW sides. Famously, two large ships belonging to Caligula were long preserved in the lake bed. Following repeated attempts beginning in Renaissance times, in 1927 the recovery of the two ships became a matter of national prestige and propaganda for the Fascist government. The decision was taken to lower the level of the lake by c.22 m to the lake floor where the hulls lay, using powerful pumps that sucked and directed the water through the ancient emissary that was re-opened (figs. 2-3). These operations, conducted between 1928 and 1932, concluded in 1936 with the grand opening on the NW shore of the Museo Nazionale delle Navi Romane, where the ships were displayed. But the tragic epilogue came just a few years later in 1944 during the Second World War when the ships, symbols of a régime that was as boastful as it was fragile, were completely destroyed.