The Castelli Romani can be seen in one day, with two main stops: Frascati, for its Tusculan villas built between the 16th and 17th centuries, and Castel Gandolfo, for the Pontifical Palace and Lake Albano, which occupies the crater of an extinct volcano. It is a region that the Roman elite chose to escape the city long before the word "summer" existed.
Frascati and the Tusculan villas
Frascati is the city most associated with the name of the Castelli Romani, and owes this to its Tusculan villas: country residences built by powerful Roman families between the 16th and 17th centuries, with Renaissance and Baroque architecture surrounded by Italian gardens. The name comes from Tusculum, the ancient city in the surrounding hills, where Cicero had his own villa and there wrote the Tusculan Disputations. The choice of the location was no coincidence: the milder climate than Rome, the short distance from the city and the view over the valley had already attracted the Roman aristocracy for more than two thousand years before the villas that can be seen today.
Castel Gandolfo and Lake Albano
The second stop is Castel Gandolfo, built on the edge of the Albano lake crater. The city's connection with the papacy dates back to the 17th century: it was Pope Urban VIII who, from 1626, chose the place as a summer residence, and Alexander VII later expanded the complex, commissioning the gardens from Gian Lorenzo Bernini, the same sculptor and architect behind so many works in the heart of Rome. The lake itself is volcanic, formed within the caldera of a cone that collapsed in prehistoric times, and is one of the few lakes of this origin that survive in the region, alongside Lake Nemi.
Before coming into the hands of the Holy See, the castle belonged to the Savelli family, and passed into the pontifical patrimony in 1596, under Pope Clement VIII, due to financial difficulties of the former owners. The complex seen today brings together the Apostolic Palace, the gardens designed by Bernini, as well as convents, a school and even an astronomical observatory maintained by the Holy See, a structure much larger than the image of a "country house" usually suggests.
Why did the Roman elite always leave the city in this direction
The thread that unites Frascati and Castel Gandolfo is not just geographic, it is customary: since the Roman Republic, patricians and then emperors chose the Alban Mountains as a summer refuge, and the Church, centuries later, inherited the same instinct when taking the papal residence there. It is the same logic of retreat that led Cicero to write in Tusculum what he did not write in Rome, and that led popes to spend centuries of summers outside the city walls. Leaving Rome, for this elite, was never an escape: it was where thought and rest found space that public life did not leave.
Distance also matters: the Castelli Romani are just over twenty kilometers from the center of Rome, close enough to return in the same day, and far enough away so that the air, the altitude and the silence of the hills seemed, to those coming from the ancient city, like another world. It is this combination of proximity and distance that explains why the region never stopped attracting those in Rome who had the means to choose where to go.
What changes with repertoire
Anyone who visits the Castelli Romani without context sees small, beautiful towns, a lake surrounded by greenery, a summer palace. Those who know what to look for recognize a pattern that dates back more than two thousand years: the same hill that housed Cicero's villa today houses palaces that the Roman aristocracy and later the Church chose for the same reason, the right distance from Rome to think more clearly than the city allows.
This piece came out of a place you can actually visit. To see it up close, with people who study these works and live among them, follow the link: the cultural immersion in Rome
Cultural program in Rome
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Guided experience in Portuguese through Rome, Villa d'Este and the Castelli Romani, for families and groups of up to six people, with cultural preparation before departure.
Learn about the programFrequently asked questions
What are Castelli Romani?
A group of small towns in the Alban Mountains, south of Rome, including Frascati and Castel Gandolfo, built on the caldera of an ancient volcano. It has been a summer destination for the Roman elite since Antiquity.
What to see in Castelli Romani?
Frascati, with its Tusculan villas from the 16th and 17th centuries, and Castel Gandolfo, with the Pontifical Palace and Lake Albano, which occupies the crater of the extinct volcano. The two cities cover the essentials of a one-day visit.
Why is Castel Gandolfo linked to the popes?
Because since the 17th century, with Pope Urban VIII, it became the summer residence of the pontiffs, later expanded by Alexander VII with gardens designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
Is Lake Albano volcanic?
Yes. The lake occupies a crater in the Alban Hills volcanic complex, now extinct, whose ancient activity also shaped the terrain where Frascati and the other towns of the Castelli Romani were built.
Continue to Castelli Romani: Otium: why leave the city to think · Castel Gandolfo, the residence of the popes · Villa d'Este, in Tivoli, what to see · Mark Antony's speech