Villa Angelina or Vecchia of Monte Porzio Catone is one of 12 Tuscolano Villas made by the papal nobility in the sixteenth century in this area.
Its story begins in 1558 with a small building by the cardinal Giovanni Ricci di Montepulciano that he wanted one of his rest home and agricultural production near the villa of Pope Paul III.
Shortly after the villa passed to Cardinal Farnese (called Angelina in honour of his title as cardinal of Sant'Angelo) and then in 1568 it went to Cardinal Marco Altemps Sittico.
The Altemps turned it into a villa and the work was followed by the architects Giacomo Barozzi and Martino Longhi and numerous painters. The frescoes were however lost during the bombardments of the Second World War.
Inside the villa is a chapel dedicated to St. Gregory, in honour of the pontiff, and a number of homes for those in the agricultural work.
These are built on the ruins of a Roman villa with stretches of a Roman road, in the area called Barco Borghese.
In the twentieth century, the Jesuits reconstructed the villa and transformed it to a convent of nuns.
Today Villa Vecchia is a privately owned hotel.
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