What to see in Frascati: villas, churches and museums

Frascati is easy to explore on foot, and the centre is small. This is the route we suggest to anyone with half a day, starting from the square where almost everyone arrives: piazza Marconi. It is not an official route; it is what we would tell a friend.

1. Piazza Marconi and the view of Rome

This is the big square that opens like a balcony towards Rome. On one side the view runs across the plain to the city; on the other, high above the steps and the avenues, stands the facade of Villa Aldobrandini. If you arrive by train, it is a short walk up from the station.

2. Villa Aldobrandini

This is the villa that dominates Frascati. Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini, nephew of Pope Clement VIII, had it built between 1598 and 1602. The design is by Giacomo della Porta; after his death in 1602 it was finished by Carlo Maderno and Giovanni Fontana.

The highlight is behind the palace: the Water Theatre, a large curved nymphaeum with fountains and statues, and in the Room of Parnassus a water organ. The villa still belongs to the Aldobrandini and the interior is closed; the park can be visited, as arranged by the Frascati tourist office.

3. The Museo Tuscolano in the Aldobrandini Stables

On piazza Marconi itself are the villa’s former stables, from the seventeenth century, restored by Massimiliano Fuksas and reopened in 2000. They house the Museo Tuscolano, with Roman finds from the area and models of the Tusculan Villas, as well as temporary exhibitions. Opening times and tickets are on the Stables’ official website.

4. The park of Villa Torlonia

On the other side of the square is the public park of Villa Torlonia. The villa began in 1563 as the “Caravilla” of the writer Annibal Caro and passed to the Borghese, Ludovisi, Colonna and Conti, and finally, in 1841, to the Torlonia. The palace was destroyed in the 1943 bombing; the park, public since 1954, keeps Carlo Maderno’s Water Theatre, built between 1607 and 1625.

5. The cathedral of San Pietro

Walk down to piazza San Pietro, the heart of the town. The cathedral was begun in 1599 to a design by Ottaviano Nonni, known as il Mascherino; the facade in Tusculan stone and travertine, with its two bell towers, is by Girolamo Fontana and was finished by 1698. The 1943 bombing destroyed the presbytery and the organ, and rebuilding was completed in 1949.

Inside, on the back of the facade, is the monument to Charles Edward Stuart, the pretender to the British throne: his story is in the Frascati curiosities.

6. The church of the Gesù and the fake dome

This is the Jesuit church, a few steps away. Inside is the finest trick in Frascati: a dome that does not exist, painted on a flat surface by Andrea Pozzo, who worked here in the early 1680s. A dark disc on the floor marks the spot to stand on: from there the perspective is perfect, and if you move, the illusion breaks. The apse is painted in perspective too.

7. The streets of the centre and the fraschette

Between piazza San Pietro and the market the streets are full of fraschette, the taverns of the new wine with a branch over the door. What a fraschetta is, we explain in what to eat in the Castelli Romani. The wine is Frascati, the same one that grows on our hills.

Getting there

From Roma Termini there is a regional train to Frascati, the oldest line in Lazio; by car you go up the via Tuscolana. Frascati is a few kilometres from Monte Porzio Catone, on the road past Villa Mondragone and the Barco Borghese. For details: how to get here from Rome.

In short

• Suggested route: piazza Marconi, Villa Aldobrandini, the Stables, the Villa Torlonia park, the cathedral, the church of the Gesù.
• Do not miss: the Water Theatre and Andrea Pozzo’s fake dome.
• Check before you go: access to the Aldobrandini park and the Museo Tuscolano’s opening times.
• Nearby: Tusculum above the town, Monte Porzio Catone on the next hill.