The Villa Muti, Frascati

Frascati is one of the most beautiful of the towns in the Alban Hills to which the Popes and Cardinals retreated from the summer heat of Rome. The Popes built Castel Gandolfo on the skyline above Lake Albano, while the cardinals and noble Roman families built villas and palazzi nearby in Frascati, Tivoli, Rocca di Papa and Grottaferrata. The Villa Muti, otherwise Arrigoni-Muti, in Frascati enjoys perhaps the best view of all over the Eternal City. Development on the site was begun in 1579 by Monsignor Ludovico Cesaroli, but it was his successor in the property in 1595, Cardinal Pompeo Arrigoni, who built the Palazzo 'semplice ma severo' which has essentially survived until today. It passed through various other priestly hands, including those of members of the Muti family, until the early 19th Century when it was owned by Monsignor Angelo Cesarini, secretary and close friend of Bonnie Prince Charlie's younger brother, the Cardinal Duke of York, known to Jacobites as Henry IX and I (1725-1807). He had become a priest after the failure of the 45 Rebellion. Cesarini (1743-1810) was Rector of the Seminary of Frascati, and in 1801 he was appointed to the titular dignity of Bishop of Milevi. Henry consecrated him, and he was executor and chief-beneficiary of Henry's will. Henry himself was Bishop of Frascati, and since the exiled Stuart court had long been at the Palazzo Muti in Rome, it was natural for him to use the villa as his summer residence. On three occasions, in 1802, 1803 and 1805, he entertained Pope Pius VII there; on his first visit the Pope was accompanied by King Charles Emmanuel IV of Savoy, the legitimate successor to Henry's claim to the British thrones. Henry died at the Villa on July 13, 1807, and Jacobitism, long moribund, died with him. Twenty-five years later it had become a matter of romance and nostalgia, and it is no surprise that Sir Walter Scott regarded his visits to the Cheneys, then tenants at the Villa, as the great experience of his Roman visit.