ALBANO LAZIALE

Altitude 400 m (1,310 feet). 35,000 inhabitants

In the territory of the ancient city Alba Longa

The area of the VILLA OF DOMITIAN (81/96), which had as its center in Castel Gandolfo (Alba Longa), included the area of Albano Laziale as well

Septimius Severus (197/211) built the Castra Albana, camps for the troops of the faithful Second Parthian Legion who had made a decisive contribution to the achievement of power for the Libyan emperor

Sepulcher built as a tower

Coming from Rome, just before Albano Laziale on the left, there are the remains of a grandiose tomb built with four floors plus maybe a spire, for a total height of about 45 m (147 feet), perhaps the Tomb of Pompey

Villa known as Villa of Pompey

In the VILLA COMUNALE OF ALBANO LAZIALE formerly Villa Doria Pamphili, dug in the years 1923/24 and largely buried again

Complex with a terrace of about 340 x 260 m (1,115 x 787 feet) mistakenly attributed to Pompey

Pretoria Gate

Entrance of the Castra Albana, 438 x 240 m (1,437 x 788 feet), discovered after the bombing in 1944 during World War II

There are numerous sections of the walls left built with large blocks of peperino stone about 1 m (3 feet) thick

S. Maria della Rotonda

Built reusing the previously existing structures of maybe a nympheum of the Albanum (villa) of Domitian which had become, at the beginning of the third century AD, the baths of the Castra Albana

Floor mosaics with "Sea monsters"

Large cistern

Grandiose Roman underground water deposit of about 10,000 m³ (2,600,000 gallons), 48 x 32 m (157 x 105 feet) divided into five aisles where the aqueducts of Cento Bocche (one-hundred mouths) and Malaffitto used to converge

Amphitheater

Severian period (193/235). To the north of the Castra Albana

Half of it is still preserved with main axis of 113 m (370 feet) and arena 67,50 x 45 m (215 x 148 feet)

Cellomaio Baths

Built by Caracalla (211/217) south of the Castra Albana beyond the Via Appia on a slope. They were named after the neighborhood called Cellomaio

Known in medieval times as the Palace of Ascanio

One of the best preserved room of the baths is now the church of S. Pietro which faces the Appian Way

“Tomb of the Horatii and Curiatii”

Majestic tomb slab with truncated cones in the upper part, built at the end of the Republican period

It is a one-off building in its kind. The connection with the Horatii and Curiatii, the male triplets from Rome and the male triplets from Alba Longa who fought each other in a duel in the seventh century BC, is legendary and not based on evidence

Catacomb of St. Senator

In front of the Tomb of the Horatii and Curiatii. It is evidence of the importance of the Church of Albano since antiquity

Frescoes dating back to the fifth, sixth and ninth centuries