Villa Mondragone and the popes: from Gregory XIII to Urban VIII

Villa Mondragone was planned from the start for a pope. It was not a family villa that a pope used now and then: it was built to host him. That is why its history closely follows that of the popes who, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, chose the Castelli Romani as their summer residence.

Why did the popes come to Monte Porzio Catone?

The villa stands on a hill about 20 kilometres from Rome, near ancient Tusculum, at a little over 400 metres. From the sixteenth century the nobility close to the popes built summer and ceremonial residences on these hills, the Tusculan villas, between Frascati, Monte Porzio and Grottaferrata.

Mondragone was born in that setting. Cardinal Marco Sittico Altemps, nephew of Pope Pius IV, began building it in 1573 to a design by Martino Longhi the Elder, to host the reigning pope. His story is in Marco Sittico Altemps, the German cardinal of Mondragone.

Gregory XIII, the first pope to use it

The pope in those years was Gregory XIII, born Ugo Boncompagni, elected on 13 May 1572 and died in Rome on 10 April 1585. The sources say he used the villa regularly as a summer residence, as the guest of Cardinal Altemps. The name “Mondragone” comes from the dragon on his coat of arms.

The event that made it famous dates from 1582: the bull Inter gravissimas, dated 24 February, with which the pope reformed the calendar. We cover it in detail in Villa Mondragone and the Gregorian calendar. On the same hill, in 1579, Gregory XIII had also had the new church of Monte Porzio built, with which the revival of the town began.

Clement VIII and Paul V

According to the sources, after Gregory XIII the villa hosted two more popes for long periods: Clement VIII and Paul V. The sources we consulted do not give the dates of those stays, so we do not either.

Paul V, Camillo Borghese, is the pope who brought his family to Monte Porzio. His nephew, Cardinal Scipione Borghese, bought Mondragone in 1613 together with the other Altemps properties, and under him the villa had its most splendid period: it was enlarged, with the Dutch architect Jan van Santen, known as Giovanni Vasanzio, and received part of the family’s collections of art and antiquities. The church of San Gregorio Magno also owes a great deal to the Borghese and to Paul V’s will.

And Pius IV?

Pius IV appears in the villa’s story only as the uncle of the man who built it: he was the pope whose nephew Altemps was. None of the sources consulted places him at Mondragone, and we do not claim it: a villa built by a nephew of Pius IV does not prove that he ever went there.

The farewell in 1626

In 1626 Urban VIII chose to leave Mondragone for the residence of Castel Gandolfo, and from then on the villa was no longer a home of the popes. A long decline began, which ended with the passage to the Jesuits and, in 1981, to Tor Vergata University. The story of the college is in the Voynich manuscript and the Jesuits of Villa Mondragone.

In short

• Built: from 1573, for Cardinal Marco Sittico Altemps, to host Gregory XIII.
• Popes linked to the villa: Gregory XIII (regular stays, the bull of 1582); Clement VIII and Paul V (long stays, no dates in the sources).
• The Borghese: Scipione Borghese, nephew of Paul V, buys it in 1613.
• End as a papal home: 1626, with Urban VIII and Castel Gandolfo.
• Today: owned by Tor Vergata University since 1981; not open every day, information on the university’s website.