The medieval period During the Roman period, the territory of the historic center of Marino was occupied by the
municipium of
Castrimoenium, located, according to some scholars, either at the locality of Castel de' Paolis or at the present-day Castelletto ward, that is, in the oldest inhabited area of Marino. The area to date occupied by the palace is located just outside, in a southerly direction, the perimeter of Castelletto, right along the line of expansion of the built-up area during the
late Middle Ages, which would lead to the populating of the Coste and Santa Lucia districts. For these reasons, some scholars have been tempted to hypothesize that the
Counts of Tusculum -whose lordship is attested in the area of the
Alban Hills since the 10th century, and who probably also ruled
Marino during the 12th century- had already built a tower or fortified building at this point on the hill. In any case, when the castle came into the possession of the Orsini family they provided for the rearrangement of the entire perimeter of the castle walls, which in just a century suffered three sieges: in 1267 by the Romans led by Arrigo of Castile, in 1347 by the tribune
Cola di Rienzo, and in 1379-after the battle of Marino-by the papal army obedient to
Pope Urban VI. Thus, one can well understand the military importance of the fief, which was endowed with a new gate - Porta Giordana, probably dedicated to the feudal lord Giordano Orsini -, a new urban addition The construction of the Orsini fortress can be dated to the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century, since already during the period of strong feudal anarchy occurring in
Lazio in conjunction with the
Western Schism (1378-1417), with the weakening of papal power the fiefdom of Marino was stormed many times by different armies and a new fortress, with greater capacity to resist sieges than the old fortress of the
Frangipani family, located at the highest point of the castle, i.e., near the present Piazza Giacomo Matteotti, had already been built.
15th and 16th centuries The fiefdom of Marino was purchased by the
Colonna family in 1417, for the sum of 12,000
florins, in a very favorable period for this Roman baronial family: in fact, the
Council of Constance had just patched up the
Western Schism with the election of
Pope Martin V, born Oddone Colonna. It was Martin V himself who went to Marino in 1423, to the bedside of his dying brother Giordano.-,
Vittoria Colonna -who was born there in 1490 or 1492 Throughout the fifteenth century the castle was the subject of alternating conquests by papal, Neapolitan or Colonnese armies: the climax was reached when in the summer of 1501 the French army marching toward
Naples, led by
Marshal of France Robert Stewart, received orders from
Pope Alexander VI to raze the fortifications of Marino,
Zagarolo,
Artena,
Genazzano,
Paliano,
Subiaco,
Cave,
Rocca di Papa and other fiefs belonging to the Colonna family, his personal enemies. Popular rumor has it that, in the work of rebuilding the baronial residence, the feudal lady
Agnese di Montefeltro, a cultured woman who had grown up at the
Montefeltro court in
Urbino, also consulted the famous architect
Donato Bramante, who was engaged at the time in the construction of the
basilica of St. Peter in the Vatican in
Rome, and that Bramante is credited with the construction of a section of scarp walls in
peperino blocks located on the southwest front of the palace. However, it is more likely that these are a surviving section of the ancient circle of walls of the 14th-century Orsini fortress. Thus was conceived the straight line that from the via Castrimeniense -main road connecting with
Rome, still today- led directly to the baronial residence under construction, through the gutting of the current via Roma through the upper-medieval district of the Castelletto ward. Outside the walls, the first part of the Colonna Gardens was built, a valuable green area at the time outside the city -today completely replaced by the twentieth-century expansion of the Borgo Garibaldi district-, conceived as a palace garden. The design of the palace was entrusted to
Antonio da Sangallo the Younger: caused work on the palace complex to be suspended, which was resumed under the rule of
Marcantonio II Colonna, famous because he was the admiral of the papal fleet at the
Battle of Lepanto in 1571. The period of his lordship over Marino, which lasted from 1554 to 1584, was marked by legal reorganization -in 1564 the seal of the Community appeared for the first time, in 1566 the new Statutes were issued,- the Colonna Gardens complex was enlarged -causing quite a few protests among the people of Marino from whom the communal land used for growing onions was removed, which became the splendid private garden of the
Colonna family -which was embellished with statues and fountains and with the frescoed vaults of the Casino, a new area of baronial greenery at the Ferentano woods, the Barco Colonna, was also created, and the part of the palace already laid out was finally completed. The walls of the inner courtyard) made on commission from the
Colonna family: in the foreground, the basilica of St. Barnabas, and immediately behind, Palazzo Colonna. (1719 collegiate
basilica of San Barnaba, built between 1640 and 1662 centrally to this axis, in today's Piazza Lepanto, was in fact placed the monument-symbol of the city, the fountain of the Four Moors, made around 1636 by the sculptor Pompeo Castiglia. Inside the ducal palace - in fact, since 1606 the fiefdom of Marino had been elevated to the rank of a duchy by
Pope Paul V -
Filippo I Colonna entrusted the work to the architect
Girolamo Rainaldi, but also by disposals and removals put in place earlier,-along with oleographs of the
Popes with life-size reproduced heads
Pope Benedict XIV was hosted at the palace on June 4, 1741. It is likely that the palace, abandoned by the noble owners, suffered some raids during the events of the
Roman Republic (1798-1799). The situation normalized after the interlude of the Napoleonic occupation of the
Papal States (1807 - 1814), when
Pope Pius VII returned to
Rome in May 1814. The subversion of feudalism, already declared by the French in 1807, was confirmed in the territories of "second recovery" -
Romagna,
Marche and
Umbria, which were returned to the pope by the
Congress of Vienna only in the summer of 1815- while in Lazio it was effectively discouraged by the
motu proprio of July 6, 1816. Thus it was that many feudal lords renounced their centuries-old feudal rule over their fiefs, while retaining all property there. The "baronial places" throughout the
Church State were reduced in a few years from 263 to 72. Therefore, Prince Philip III Colonna renounced feudal rule over Marino and most of his larger fiefs that were costly to maintain, since the solution adopted by the
motu proprio mentioned above had been precisely to shoulder all expenses of maintenance to the feudal lord. However, he remained in possession of all the family residences located in the Marinese territory, including the palace. In the Gregorian Cadastre, a massive work of registration that began in the late 1710s and was completed in the 1930s, the
Colonna family's property appears to be the
fideicommissary inheritance of Cardinal Agostino Rivarola: this probably occurred upon the death of Prince Philip III (1818) in view of the intricate succession disputes among the prince's three daughters. His successors, namely Prince Aspreno Colonna-Doria-Del Carretto (1787 - 1847), Giovanni Andrea Colonna-Doria-Del Carretto (1820-1894) and Marcantonio Colonna (1844-1912) gradually disposed of this large estate: having sold the Colonna villa in Belpoggio as early as the late eighteenth century, in the 1840s the local bourgeois families of the Colizza, Capri and Batocchi bought the Colonna villa in Bevilacqua, the Colonna orchards near the Sassone locality and the Colonna Gardens, respectively. Although many valuable works had been moved elsewhere by the
Colonna family, At the palace now owned by the municipality, the municipal seat was immediately moved, since 1878 housed in the Palazzo Comunale in what is now Piazza Giacomo Matteotti - today the palace is named after the square in front of it. Along with the municipal seat, the seat of the municipal
antiquarium, opened in February 1904, and the seat of the municipal archives, which contained numerous unique documents dating back as far as the 16th century, were moved to Palazzo Colonna. - the first Wine Store of Italy was inaugurated in the premises of the former ducal cellars under the quadrangular tower, a sort of high-level wine stores conceived as means of advertising local wines. The reopening of the premises, soon to be closed due to the above-mentioned war events, was proposed by then Senator Zaccaria Negroni in 1957. On February 2, 1944, in the midst of
World War II, the building was almost entirely destroyed by the first Anglo-American aerial bombardment carried out over the historic center of Marino -previously, only the hamlet of
Ciampino had been hit- Despite the fact that the local National Liberation Committee presided over by the future
servant of God, mayor of Marino and
Christian Democrat senator Zaccaria Negroni, had informed the Allies of the absence of war objectives in the territory of Marino, the raid was probably unleashed with the intention of striking the car park of Villa Colonna di Belpoggio and the
base transceiver station of Palazzo Colonna. Irretrievably lost were the numerous paintings of the picture gallery, the precious documents of the archives -some had been transcribed by the scholar Angelo Mercuri, others were found in duplicate at the Colonna archives of
Palazzo Colonna in
Rome or at the capitular archives of the basilica of St. Barnabas, most are lost forever-, the period furnishings. In the collapse of the eastern facade, the fountain of the Four Moors was buried. The quadrangular courtyard keep and some of the perimeter walls of the northern front, as well as the entire western flank, remained standing. Under the palace, in the intricate maze of caves originally used as ducal cellars, displaced citizens found refuge throughout the war period. Around the rubble of the palace, after the arrival of the Anglo-American army between June 3 and 4, 1944, the
pro tempore municipal administration and many citizen volunteers labored to make the city's fortunes rise again quickly: the moving account of the war and postwar period in Marino was provided by a protagonist of these years, Zaccaria Negroni, in the book
Marino sotto le bombe. On December 13, 1944, the temporary headquarters of the municipal middle school and the Paolo Mercuri State Art Institute were inaugurated in the premises of Palazzo Colonna that had survived the bombing. The municipal seat was again brought to the old Palazzo Comunale until the complete reconstruction of Palazzo Colonna was completed, faithfully respecting the original design so much so that the nineteenth-century reliefs and the present ones almost totally match: the inauguration of the reconstructed building was held on February 2, 1958. Since then the building has not undergone any substantial changes. As early as July 1954, however, the interior spaces of the palace were allocated: in addition to housing the municipal administration, the basement overlooking Lepanto Square would house a "wine store" and the
pro loco, while the ground floor overlooking the inner courtyard was destined for the "Paolo Mercuri" state art institute, shortly thereafter officially recognized as a secondary school. Students of the art institute were also entrusted with the creation of
peperino busts depicting some personalities linked to Marino: The new coat of arms, which still hangs to this day on the facade, was created in 1995 by painter Antonio Nardi. During the celebrations of the sixty-sixth edition of the Grape Festival in 1983, a bust of the Roman poet of Marinese origin Leone Ciprelli, creator of the festival itself, was placed in the inner courtyard of the building. In 2001, some work was done to decorate the council chamber, the walls of which were enriched with frescoes by painter Antoine Cesaroni. Palazzo Colonna has also been the setting for the
twinnings signed between the city of Marino and other towns in Europe and North America. In 1989, the council chamber was the scene of the signing of the twinning with the U.S. town of
Irving, Texas, the main campus of the
University of Dallas, a Catholic university institution that has a branch campus in Marino territory, at the Due Santi locality. On Oct. 2, 2003, as part of the celebrations for the seventy-ninth Grape Festival, a twinning agreement was signed with the Greek town of
Lepanto, the scene of the historic
Battle of Lepanto in 1571, an event to which Marino's history is particularly linked. On Oct. 4, 2008, still in conjunction with the celebrations for the eighty-fourth Grape Festival, a delegation from the twinned Spanish town of
Paterna was received in the council chamber. On May 22, 2007, an open city council met in Palazzo Colonna to debate the preservation of the San Giuseppe Provincial General Hospital, defined by all political sides and local associations as fundamental for the city. In addition to local administrators, the open city council was attended by the general director of the ASL RMH, Luciano Mingiacchi, health director Vittorio Amedeo Cicogna and the health director of the Marino-
Frascati hospital pole, Dr. Michele Di Paolo. On Dec. 10, 2008, a delegation of
Sierra Leonean authorities consisting of
Makeni Bishop Monsignor Giorgio Biguzzi,
Makeni Mayor Alhaji Andrew Kanu, and
Northern Province President as well as Minister of Internal Affairs of the current government was received at Palazzo Colonna. The meeting, which was attended by the newly installed abbot pastor of the Basilica of St. Barnabas Monsignor Pietro Massari, who is in charge of the mission of the
suburbicarian diocese of Albano Laziale in the territory of the
diocese of Makeni, was followed on Dec. 11 by a mass in the basilica. ==Description==