Palombara Sabina ( Romanesco: ) is a town and ''

comune The (; plural: ) is a local administrative division of Italy, roughly equivalent to a township or municipality. It is the third-level administrative division of Italy, after regions ('' regioni'') and provinces (''province''). The can also ...

'' in the Metropolitan City of Rome,

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

Main sights

* Savelli-

Torlonia 200px, Coat of arms of the House of Torlonia. The House of Torlonia is the name of an Italian princely family from Rome, which acquired a huge fortune in the 18th and 19th centuries through administering the finances of the Vatican. The first infl ...

Castle, built from the 11th century by the Ottaviani, a branch of the

Crescentii The Crescentii (in modern Italian Crescenzi) were a baronial family, attested in Rome from the beginning of the 10th century and which in fact ruled the city and the election of the popes until the beginning of the 11th century. History Several ...

family of Rome.

Antipope Innocent III Innocent III (born Lando Di Sezze) was an antipope from 29 September 1179 to January 1180. Innocent III was born in Sezze in the Papal States and died in La Cava, Apulia. He was the last of four antipopes during the pontificate of Alexander ...

was arrested here in 1180. It was acquired by Luca Savelli, a nephew of pope

Honorius III Pope Honorius III (c. 1150 – 18 March 1227), born Cencio Savelli, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 18 July 1216 to his death. A canon at the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, he came to hold a number of importa ...

, in 1250, whence the current name. It was rebuilt in the 16th century by Troilo Savelli, who commissioned his friend

Baldassarre Peruzzi Baldassare Tommaso Peruzzi (7 March 1481 – 6 January 1536) was an Italian architect and painter, born in a small town near Siena (in Ancaiano, ''frazione'' of Sovicille) and died in Rome. He worked for many years with Bramante, Raphael, and lat ...

the frescoes which are still visible inside, including portraits of Roman famous men, allegories of the

Liberal Arts Liberal arts education (from Latin "free" and "art or principled practice") is the traditional academic course in Western higher education. ''Liberal arts'' takes the term '' art'' in the sense of a learned skill rather than specifically th ...

and

grotesque Since at least the 18th century (in French and German as well as English), grotesque has come to be used as a general adjective for the strange, mysterious, magnificent, fantastic, hideous, ugly, incongruous, unpleasant, or disgusting, and thus ...

decorations. It is now home to a library, an exhibition of Roman statues found nearby Palombara in 2008, and a natural sciences museum. * Abbey of Saint John in Argentella *Church of ''Santa Maria Annunziata'' (14th century) *Church of St. Blaise (1101), in Romanesque style. *Fortified village of Castiglione, in the Monti Lucretili park, at . *Convent of St. Michael, in rural Romanesque style. It was built over a Roman villa, of which traces of

opus reticulatum ''Opus reticulatum'' (also known as reticulate work) is a facing used for concrete walls in Roman architecture from about the first century BCE to the early first century CE. Facings are a type of polygonal masonry used to apply a smooth finish to ...

remain.

References

Cities and towns in Lazio {{Lazio-geo-stub