Frascati curiosities: the pupazza, the Stuarts and the fake dome

Everyone knows Frascati for its wine and for day trips out of Rome. Between one fraschetta and the next, though, there are stories that few people know, even among those who live nearby. These are our favourites.

The pupazza with three breasts

In Frascati’s pastry shops and market stalls you will find an odd biscuit: a woman with three breasts, the pupazza frascatana. It is made with flour, honey, olive oil and orange zest; “pupazza” means doll in Roman dialect.

The most common legend tells of a nurse who, during the grape harvest, looked after the children of the women working in the vineyards. To calm them she had an extra breast: two gave milk, the third gave wine. More broadly the pupazza is read as a symbol of abundance and fertility, tied to wine and farming. The sources disagree about older origins, and some link it to customs of ancient Rome: that is a theory, not a fact.

A king without a kingdom in the cathedral

In the cathedral of San Pietro, on the back of the facade, is the monument to Charles Edward Stuart, the “Bonnie Prince Charlie” of the Scottish ballads, who claimed the thrones of England and Scotland and lost. His brother, Cardinal Henry Benedict Stuart, Duke of York, was bishop of Frascati.

Charles Edward died in Rome in 1788, and the solemn funeral was held in Frascati. The sources disagree about where he was first buried: according to some he lay first in Frascati cathedral and was moved to St Peter’s in Rome after 1807; according to the Italian heritage catalogue he was buried in the Vatican from the start. On one point they agree: his heart stayed in Frascati, under the monument.

The dome that is not there

In the church of the Gesù you look up and see a dome. It does not exist: it is painted on a flat surface by Andrea Pozzo, the Jesuit master of perspective, in the early 1680s. A dark disc on the floor shows where to stand; from there the illusion is perfect.

The pope’s first train

The Rome to Frascati railway, opened on 5 July 1856, was the first built in the Papal State. In 1884 the tracks reached the town centre. The regional train from Termini is still the easiest way up to the Castelli: for us in Monte Porzio it is also the first stretch of the journey, as we explain in how to get here from Rome.

The Landsknechts who turned back

In 1527, after the Sack of Rome, the Landsknecht soldiers marched up towards Frascati. According to tradition they stopped at a shrine with an image of the Virgin and turned back. The church of Capocroce was later built where the shrine stood.

Yellow and red, like Rome

Frascati uses Rome’s colours, yellow and red. Tradition explains it with 1837, when during an epidemic the town took in Romans fleeing the capital.

An opera in the villa

In 1668, at Villa Aldobrandini, La Circe by Alessandro Stradella, one of the best known composers of the seventeenth century, was performed for the first time. The villas of the papal court hosted music, theatre, water games and feasts.

The physicists’ town

Frascati is also a centre of research: it is home to the INFN National Laboratories, ENEA and ESRIN, the European Space Agency centre for Earth observation. It has that in common with Monte Porzio, where the main site of the Rome Astronomical Observatory stands.

In short

• The pupazza: a honey biscuit with three breasts, two of milk and one of wine.
• The Stuarts: in the cathedral, the monument to Charles Edward, with his heart; his brother the cardinal was bishop of Frascati.
• The fake dome: painted by Andrea Pozzo in the church of the Gesù.
• The train: Rome to Frascati, 1856, the pope’s first railway.
• More stories: the history of Frascati and Monte Porzio Catone curiosities.