CASTELLO OF SANGALLO

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 126, 24 November 1923, Page 16

CASTELLO OF SANGALLO

HOME OF THE BORGIAS,

The Castello of Sangallo, once a famous fortress and the property of the great Colonna family, has become the summer residence of the Fascisti Premier, Signor Mussolini, states the Rome correspondent of the "Daily Telegraph." It is less than forty miles from Rome, on the seaside of Nettuno, and in the vicinity of the little fashionable summer resort of Anzio, where a small number of Romans go for a holiday occasionally to escape the tropical heat of the capital. The medieval castello was owned by the Colonna family, when Alexander Borgia, known as Alexander VI., in August, 1301, confiscated all the estates of the Princess of Colonna including that of Nettuno, on the pretext that they had revolted against the Church. He made their various properties over to his nephews. The land or Sangallo, with the estate of Nettuno, was. given to Lucrezia Borgia, to her daughter, and to Alfonso of Aragon, her second husband. Alexander VI had a castle and fort built at Nettuno facing the sea, which was called Sangallo, because the architect was Giuliano Giamberti, who had built the convent of the Augustinian friars at Florence near the Porto San Gallo, and ever afterwards went by the nickname of Sangallo.' The cast's at Nettuno was named - after him. The original drawings are preserved in the library at Siena. It is not known whether Lucrezia Borgia even resided much at her castle, which, in fact, was finished only a .few months before the Pope died. He went, in great state in 1503, with his son, the Duke of Valentino, to inaugurate a part of the new castle, and is represented as riding thither on horseback. He died in the month of August the same year, and was succeeded by Pius 111., a Piccolomini of Siena, who reigned only twenty-six days. He in turn was succeeded by the warlike Pope Julius 11., a friend of the Colonnas, who restored all the estates to them which had been confiscated by Pope Borgia.

They found their estate of Nettuno greatly improved, with a handsome castle overlooking the sea, built at the Pope s expense. However, Pope Paul VI., a Carafa, who got into conflict with the Colonnas, again took the estate from them forty-five years later, and gave it to his nephews, who held it only a ,short time, when it once more returned to the Colonnas, after the people of Nettuno had revolted and demanded the return of the princely family, to whom they were attached. It then became part of the estate of the famous Marco Antonio Colonna, the commander-in-chief of the Allied fleets at the naval battle of Lepanto, who died at Medinaceli in 1854. He left the castle to his grandson, Marco Antonio 111., who finally sold it for 400,000 ducats, to Clement VIII., and the Popes remained in possession of it till 1831, when Gregory XVI. sold it for exactly the same jrice to the Bbrghese family. In 1870 it became Italian State property, and was eventually Bold for a nominal price to Professor Ceccarini as trustee for Cardinal Tosti. Since then it passed through, various hands, and needed considerable restoration, but it,has teen classed among the Italian national monuments. To-day, instead of the picturesque old Colonna servitors or Papal Guards, the /castle is guarded by the Fascisti militia, with smart black shirts, who extend the Roman, ealute to Mussolini as he' enters or leaves it 3 gates.