Reconsidering the Orsini Villa at Santa Caterina, Castel Gandolfo (1830-1899) and the so-called Alban Villa of Clodius on the Via Appia

An archaeological site tells us many stories. Behind every story there are people: those who owned and lived on the site in ancient times, and those who owned the same site in modern times, paid for the excavations, and managed the antiquities discovered. People are also the scholars who have unearthed or studied the archaeological remains over centuries, each time applying the values, parameters, and methods of their own times. The unravelling of the relationships among these people – their perception of the site – against the backdrop of the times in which they lived and operated is essential to reconstruct the archaeological reality of a site. Using antiquarian and archival sources of the 16th and 19th centuries, this study retraces the modern history of Villa Santa Caterina (Castel Gandolfo), and the surrounding vineyards where the Alban Villa of Publius Clodius has long been located. The aim is to demonstrate that a critical approach to these sources may provide a framework to integrate and expand knowledge based on archaeological data. Here, in particular, it provides an essential contribution to the Italo-Danish investigations recently started at Villa Santa Caterina, and to my Marie Curie project ‘Cultus’