History
Usually, the common multiple features that distinguish the Complesso delle Ville Tuscolane are analysed and appreciated in scientific literature. The Complesso delle Ville Tuscolane is a group of twelve monumental renaissance palaces built on the Vulcano Laziale side, southeast of Rome, most of them over pre-existing residences of Roman epoch. The villas were created as a summer residence for the papal court and the attached economic power. Their (common) historical-cultural components, more than the artistic, architectural and landscape ones are often underlined. Without underestimating the importance of the previously mentioned features, we here aim to provide a detailed attention to one among the most renowned af these historical residences, Villa Mondragone, in relation to a certain aspect that has - somehaw distinctively - marked its life, associating it to the effects and the history of scientific knowledge, at times occasionally, at times constantly. The magnificent Mondragone building, in fact, has always had - nearly since its creation - a synergic association with science, technology, knowledge and its spread. Already at the time of the palace’s enlargement, due to the Borghese family and decided by Scipione Caffarelli Borghese the cardinal nepote of Paul V (Camillo Borghese, 1605 - 1621), in the second half of the XVII century, the palace offered a chance to contemporaneous hydraulic engineers-architects to display their skill: the descriptions by Deseine and de Brosses of water effects, games (and tricks) of the Fontana della Girandola - the most impressive among the fountains in the villas owned by Roman aristocracy in the Tuscolano region - offer a successful and lively portrait of the technological efficiency achieved in Baroque epoch. Even before, in 1611 , when the property belonged to the Altemps family, the Casino of Mondragone had been chosen as a visual reference during an observation from Rome guided by Galileo Galilei, with a new instrument that he had improved: the telescope. The experiment - that helped the scientist to enter the newly founded Accademia dei Lincei - enabled to prove the new instrument’s potential, which from the Gianicolo hill in Rome, allowed him to see the palace’s architectonic-structural details in the Tuscolano area. Some “liaison” between the Accademia dei Lincei entourage – “Europe’s first scientific academy” - and the Altemps household, with its real estate centres in Rome and in the Tuscolano area, must have certainly been known. The Academy’s founder, and far a long time its charismatic leader, Federico Cesi called il Linceo was in fact the brother~in~law of duke Giovanni Angelo Altemps, owner of the Casino building. The Altemps duke himself, erudite and bibliophile, is remembered for his strong attraction to knowledge, in its widest possible meaning. In fact, he dealt with many cultural fields, including the scientific ones (his correspondence with Galileo is often remembered, to whom he asked, among other things, to assembly a telescope); thanks to a notable wealth, he established one of the richest libraries of his time, containing two thousand manuscripts and twelve thousand volumes, featuring a particular leather and cypress wood bookbinding known as “Altempsian bookbinding”.
Going backwards in time, we remember the sixteenth century “upset” of the Julian Calendar, almost certainly associated to Mondragone, as the information in the Papal diary lead to believe. In fact, the placing datum Tusculi in the revolutionary Bull Inter gravissimas pastoralis officii nostri curas, approved by Pope Gregory XIII (Ugo Boncompagni, 1572~1585) and originated from elaborate calculations and astronomical observations.
However, the period in which the bond between the palace, science and “knowledge” was at its peak, was most certainly the one - rather recent - of the Nobile Collegio Mondragone that the Jesuits held in the Villa for nearly a century (1865,1953). Indeed, ever since its creation this teaching structure shaped itself into what nowadays are known as scuole d’eccellenza; in fact, Cabinets of Chemistry, Physics, Natural Science and Scientific Laboratories were “pioneerly” started, as a result of the Jesuits’ educational mission (already tough, and praised by many for its humanistic studies).
The Osservatorio Metereologico Tuscolano was set up in 1868. This institution - for many years represented a useful and important station, which was a reference for the system of central ltalian observatories - derives from the initiative of an astronomy luminary such as Angelo Secchi.
Given its particular position, the site of Villa Mondragone, was chosen, during the period in which the Jesuits directed the Collegio, to assess new transmission techniques, among which the one developed by Guglielmo Marconi in 1932, the first experiment of ground radio link with ultrashort waves (prototype of modern microwave and millimetre wave telecommunications). This telecommunication experiment was eased by the Villa’s unique location in respect to Rome, which, once again, validated the “outstanding” visibility with Rome, as previously proved during Galileo’s telescope experiment.
The Nobile Collegio Mondragone’s excellency in youth education, for many years ensured by the ]esuit Fathers inside the magnificent Villa’s environments, represent today an honour (and a responsibility) ideally transmitted to the University of Rome Tor Vergata. Although the University has been the Villa’s owner far just over twenty years, it has fully accepted its tradition, increasing the structure’s value as a representation site and hosting conferences and congresses that symbolize the Athenaeum’s research and formation activity. We can therefore appropriately state that the prestigious Monument, among the most notable in the south of Rome, has not lost this line of scientific continuity, nowadays ideally transmitting this historical vocation to another Institution ~ the University ~ committed to superior education and scientific research and therefore entirely devoted to science and knowledge.
From “Villa Mondragone between science and knowledge”
by prof. Rodolfo Maria Strollo
