Marco Sittico Altemps, the German cardinal of Mondragone

If Monte Porzio Catone has papal villas today, it is mostly thanks to a man who was not born in Rome, nor even in Italy. Marco Sittico Altemps, the cardinal who built Villa Mondragone, came from a town in western Austria, and his Italian surname is a translation.

Who was Marco Sittico Altemps?

He was born at Hohenems, in today’s Austria, on 19 August 1533. His father was Wolf Dietrich von Ems zu Hohenems and his mother Clara Medici, sister of Pius IV, the future pope. When his uncle became pope, the Italian branch of the family took the surname Altemps, a literal translation of Hohenems.

He was a cousin of two important figures of the sixteenth century Church, the cardinals Giovanni Antonio Serbelloni and Carlo Borromeo, who consecrated him bishop between 1564 and 1566.

A career under two popes

• 1561. Pius IV makes him a cardinal, on 26 February.
• 1561-1589. Bishop of Konstanz, his main diocese.
• 1564-1566. Papal legate in the March of Ancona.
• 1565-1595. Archpriest of the basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano.
• 1572. Back in Rome for the conclave that elects Gregory XIII.

He held the title of many Roman churches: Santi Dodici Apostoli, San Giorgio in Velabro, Santa Maria degli Angeli, San Pietro in Vincoli, San Clemente and finally Santa Maria in Trastevere.

Palazzo Altemps in Rome

In 1568 he bought a fifteenth century palace near piazza Sant’Apollinare, built in 1477 for Girolamo Riario, nephew of Sixtus IV. Between 1577 and 1595 he had it remodelled by the architect Martino Longhi the Elder, and placed the family collections there. Today it is Palazzo Altemps, one of the sites of the Museo Nazionale Romano.

Monte Porzio Catone

These are the same years as Monte Porzio Catone. In 1569 Altemps bought the nearby Villa Angelina, today Villa Vecchia, and from 1573 he built Mondragone, again designed by Martino Longhi the Elder, so that Pope Gregory XIII could spend his summers there. Around 1581-1582 the Altemps also bought the village, and in 1579 the pope had built the new church with which the revival of the town began. The rest of the story of the popes at the villa is in Villa Mondragone and the popes.

His family

The cardinal had two children: Roberto (1566-1586), ancestor of the line of the dukes of Gallese, and Altea, born around 1570 and died in 1619, who became a Benedictine nun. Altemps died in Rome on 15 February 1595, aged 61, and is buried in the chapel he had built in Santa Maria in Trastevere.

His nephew, the son of his brother Jacob Hannibal, had the same name and was Archbishop of Salzburg: Marcus Sitticus von Hohenems. He is not the same person, and the two lives are sometimes confused.

In short

• Who: Marco Sittico Altemps, born at Hohenems on 19 August 1533, died in Rome on 15 February 1595.
• Family: son of Clara Medici, sister of Pius IV; cousin of Carlo Borromeo.
• Offices: cardinal from 1561, Bishop of Konstanz, archpriest of the Lateran.
• Works: Palazzo Altemps in Rome (from 1568), Villa Mondragone from 1573, Villa Vecchia and the village of Monte Porzio.
• Not to be confused with: his nephew of the same name, Archbishop of Salzburg.