A Jacobite Gazetteer - Lazio

Frascati - Villa Lancellotti

Garden facade

This villa, formerly called Villa Piccolomini, is the nearest of all the Frascati villas to the town centre. King Charles Emanuel IV of Sardinia (later King Charles IV) lived in this villa; on October 17, 1805 he received Pope Pius VII here. ¹

The villa is located on the south side of the town up the hill from the cathedral; the main entrance today is at the intersection of Via Catone, Via Piccolomini, and Via Sant' Angelo. An older entrance (now disused) is higher up the hill at the intersection of Via Massaia and Via del Tuscolo. Views of the garden facade of the villa can be obtained from Via Massaia (below the entrance to Villa Aldobrandini) and from Via del Tuscolo.

The villa is not open to the public.

Notes

¹ Gaetano Moroni, Dizionario di Erudizione Storico-Ecclesiastico (Venice: Emiliana, 1861), XXVII, 163; CIII, 332. Charles' residency at Villa Lancelotti is also recorded in his biography by Teofilo Manzotti, Memorie storiche intorno a Carlo Emanuele IV, re di Sardegna, morto religioso nella Compagnia di Gesù, edited by Pietro Galletti (Rome: Tempesta, 1912). On the other hand Fabrizio Colonna, in his La Dimora dei Reali di Savoia nel Palazzo Colonna (Rome: Tipografia del Senato, 1922), says that Charles resided at Villa Torlonia (at the time called Villa Conti).