Villa Mondragone
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- For other places, see Mondragon.
Villa Mondragone is a patrician villa originally in the territory of the Italian commune of Frascati (Lazio), now in the territory of Monte Porzio Catone (Alban Hills). It lies on a hill 416m above sea-level, in an area with many villas called Castelli Romani about 20 Km south east of Rome, near the ancient town of Tusculum.
It was built, beginning in 1573, by Cardinal Marco Sitico Altemps, who commissioned the design for it and for the Palazzo Altemps in central Rome from Martino Longhi the Elder, on the site of the remains of a Roman villa of the consular Quintili family.
Pope Gregory XIII, whose heraldic dragon led to calling the villa "Mondragone", used the villa regularly as a summer residence, guest of Cardinal Altemps: here, in 1581, he promulgated the document (the papal bull "Inter gravissimas") which initiated the reform of the calendar now in use and known as the Gregorian calendar.
Villa Mondragone was at its maximum splendour during the epoch of the Borghese family (including Cardinal Scipione Borghese and Pope Paul V), who exhibited parts of their art and antiquities collections there (including the Antinous Mondragone which derives its name from the villa).
Other Popes who passed long periods in villa Mondragone include Clement VIII and Paul V. Starting from 1626, Pope Urban VIII decided to leave villa Mondragone in favour of the Papal residence of Castelgandolfo.
In 1858 George Sand was guest in the villa, and found there a suitable atmosphere for the setting of her novel La Daniella. In 1896 the Jesuits turned it into a college for young aristocrats.
In 1912 Wilfrid Michael Voynich acquired here the famous Voynich manuscript from the Jesuits.
During the Second World War the college gave shelter to evacuated people: the institution was closed in 1953.
In 1981 it was sold by the Order of the Jesuits to the University. Villa Mondragone is today a peripheral seat of the University of Rome Tor Vergata.
