The University of Rome Tor Vergata purchased Villa Mondragone, including a significant part of its original land, in 1981 and has always appreciated this vast palace’s remarkable historical-artistical-architectonical potential.

The initial renovation are proof of  the attention which is being paid to one of most prominent buildings owned by an Italian Public University.

A globally significant Centre, Villa Mondragone powerfully stresses the Atheanaeum’s research activities and its influential presence in an area so rich in scientific and cultural structures. The multi-centennial history legacy turns the Villa into one of the main monuments of the Area Tuscolana, and also a place traditionally committed to interaction over great distances, often being absolutely pioneering and has frequently been a privileged scenario since the days of Galileo Galilei’s telescope, to the most recent experiments of Guglielmo Marconi, who realized at the Villa his first radiocommunication tests which opened the era of terrestrial microwave communications.

In this place where Pope Gregorio XIII signed and proclaimed the papal Bull “Inter Gravissimas”, in 1582, giving birth to the new calendar nowadays widespread all over the world, many events able to mark and change the course of time have took place.

taken from “Villa Mondragone tra scienza e conoscenza”

prof. arch. Rodolfo Maria Strollo