Palestrina
Palestrina is a modern Italian city and comune with a population of about 22,000, in Lazio, about east of Rome. It is connected to the latter by the Via Prenestina. It is built upon the ruins of the ancient city of Praeneste.
Palestrina is the birthplace of composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina.
Geography
Palestrina is sited on a spur of the Monti Prenestini, a mountain range in the central Apennines.Modern Palestrina borders the following municipalities: Artena, Castel San Pietro Romano, Cave, Gallicano nel Lazio, Labico, Rocca di Cave, Rocca Priora, Rome, San Cesareo, Valmontone, Zagarolo.
History
Palestrina is still dominated today by the enormous ancient Roman sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia built on a series of terraces on the slope of the hill on which the town stands. Further massive Roman terraces support the town itself. The ancient city, however, probably dates from an even earlier period from the 7th c. BC.Ancient Praeneste
Ancient mythology connected the origin of Praeneste to Caeculus, or to other fabled characters such as Telegonus, Erulus or Praenestus. The name probably derives from the word Praenesteus, referring to its overlooking location.Early burials show that the site was already occupied in the 8th or 7th century BC. Excavations in the necropolis have shown that in the late 8th century BC a major cultural advance took place with notable eastern imports and with a close relationship with Etruria; the princely 7th c. Barberini and Bernardini tombs had contents of at least the same quality as those in the cemeteries of Etruscan Caere.
Praeneste soon became one of the most powerful and wealthy of the Latin towns.
Of the objects found in the oldest graves dating from about the 7th century BC, the cups of silver and silver-gilt and most of the gold and amber jewellery are Phoenician, but the bronzes and some of the ivory articles seem to be of the Etruscan civilization.
The earliest settlement was probably a citadel on the top of the hill around which a cyclopean wall was built, some of which remains today. In addition two walls of the same date and also visible today descended the slopes down to the town where a cross wall along the lower part of the sanctuary completed the circuit.
Roman gentes with origins in Praeneste
Præneste was already a rich and prosperous town when Rome was still emerging. The rapid development of the Latin towns led to the Latin League from the 8th c. BC for protection against the Etruscans and enemies from surrounding areas, and eventually brought Rome and Præneste together with the others. But Præneste because of her history and wealth felt superior to the others and became Rome's most hated rival as Rome grew rapidly.Latin wars
Praeneste withdrew from the Latin League in 499 BC, according to Livy, and formed an alliance with Rome after which they won the Battle of Lake Regillus against thirty Latin states. After Rome was weakened by the Gauls of Brennus, Praeneste switched allegiances to stem Roman expansion into Latium and establish power for itself and fought against Rome in the long struggles that culminated in the Latin War. From 373 to 370, it was in continual war against Rome or its allies, and was defeated by Cincinnatus.Praeneste had made a treaty with Rome whereby it retained its own citizenship and Latin status but was required to provide troops to fight in the Roman Republic’s wars. In the Latin War of 340-338 BC, Praeneste fought with the Latin rebels against Rome to retain their remaining independence but after the defeat Praeneste was punished by the loss of part of its territory. It became a city allied to Rome but equal, permitting Roman exiles to live there, which made the city more prosperous.
Dating to this period are tombs from which come the famous bronze boxes and hand mirrors, some with inscriptions partly in Etruscan, among which is the famous is the bronze Ficoroni Cista found in 1738. It is masterfully engraved with pictures of the arrival of the Argonauts in Bithynia and the victory of Pollux over Amycus. The inscription on it is in archaic Latin:Novios Plautios Romai med fecid / Dindia Macolnia fileai dedit. The caskets are unique in Italy, but a large number of mirrors of precisely similar style have been discovered in Etruria. Hence, although such objects may have come from Etruria, the evidence points decisively to an Etruscan factory in or near Praeneste itself. Other imported objects in the burials show that Praeneste traded not only with Etruria but also with the Greek east.
Republican Rome
Praenestine graves from about 240 BC onwards are surmounted by the characteristic cippus made of local stone, containing stone coffins with rich bronze, ivory and gold ornaments beside the skeleton.Præneste was linked to Rome by the major Via Praenestina Roman Road, which passed below the city, as an extension of the Via Gabiana.
From the middle of the 2nd century BC the city developed and extended intensively across the lower plateau beneath the slopes of the ancient city, even expanding beyond the valleys that border it and up to the edges of the vast necropolises. The buildings were predominantly in opus incertum. Among the public buildings here was the first thermal baths of "Madonna dell'Aquila".
At the end of the 2nd century BC a grandiose urban renovation project involved the entire city including at least 9 levels of terraces, including on the lower slope massive tuff terrace walls one of which was flanked by a street paved with limestone slabs, now the Via del Sole. The monumental sanctuary of Fortuna was also built at this time, dominating the city and dwarfing all other buildings not only there, but even those in Rome.
An undertaking of this magnitude that required massive excavations and enormous landfills, drainage and canalisation works, the construction of terrace walls, elaborate sacred and public buildings took a long time, even with the slave labour force. Inscriptions with names of numerous magistrates involved in the project indicate its long duration.
Praeneste was offered Roman citizenship in 90 BC in the Social War, when concessions had to be made by Rome to cement necessary alliances and the town was made a municipium. Soon afterwards in Sulla's civil war, Gaius Marius was blockaded in the town by the forces of Sulla. When the city was captured, Marius slew himself, the male inhabitants were massacred in cold blood, and a military colony was settled on part of its territory. From an inscription it appears that Sulla delegated the foundation of the new colony to Marcus Terentius Varro Lucullus.
The founding of the colonia was probably preceded by proscriptions and a series of property confiscations. During the 1st century BC new domus were built but above all, earlier ones were renovated, likely belonging to the "Mariae" killed by Sulla. Larger domus were built featuring peristyles and frescoed rooms with mosaic floors, with widespread use of opus reticulatum in tuff, often combined with bricks in the wall courses and columns, which gradually replaced the opus incertum in limestone.
From the late Republic to the late Empire, markets, baths, shrines and perhaps even a second forum were built in the lower city, near today's Madonna dell'Aquila.
The Empire
Under the Empire the cool breezes of Praeneste made it a favourite summer resort of wealthy Romans, whose villas studded the neighbourhood, though they ridiculed the language and the rough manners of the native inhabitants. The poet Horace ranked "cool Praeneste" with Tibur and Baiae as favoured resorts. The emperor Augustus stayed in Praeneste, and Tiberius recovered there from a dangerous illness and made it a municipium. The emperor Marcus Aurelius was at Praeneste with his family when his 7-year-old son Verus died. The ruins of the imperial villa associated with Hadrian stand in the plain near the church of S. Maria della Villa, about three-quarters of a mile from the town. At the site was discovered the statue of the Braschi Antinous, now in the Vatican Museums. Gaius Appuleius Diocles, a Roman charioteer from Lamego in Lusitania who became one of the most celebrated athletes in ancient history and is often cited as the highest-paid athlete of all time, was living in Praeneste after his retirement and died there. Pliny the Younger also had a villa at Praeneste, and L. Aurelius Avianius Symmachus retired there.Inscriptions show that the inhabitants of Praeneste were fond of gladiatorial shows.
Medieval history
The modern town is built on the ruins of the temple of Fortuna Primigenia. A bishop of Praeneste is first mentioned in 313.In 1297 the Colonna family, which had owned Praeneste from the eleventh century as a fief, revolted against Pope Boniface VIII. In the following year the town was taken by Boniface's Papal forces, razed to the ground and salted by order of the pontiff.
In 1437 the rebuilt city was captured by Giovanni Vitelleschi, a condottiero in the service of the papacy, and once more utterly destroyed at the command of Pope Eugenius IV. It was rebuilt once more and fortified by Stefano Colonna in 1448. It was sacked in 1527 and occupied by the Duke of Alba in 1556.
Barberini Family
In 1630, the comune passed by purchase into the Barberini family. It is likely the transfer was included as one of the conditions of the marriage of Taddeo Barberini and Anna Colonna. Thereafter, the famously nepotistic family, headed by Maffeo Barberini, treated the comune as a principality in its own right.Patriarchs of the Barberini family conferred, on various family members, the title of Prince of Palestrina. During the reign of Urban VIII, the title became interchangeable with that of Commander of the Papal Army as the Barberini family controlled the papacy and the Palestrina principality.
The Wars of Castro ended and members of the Barberini family fled into exile after the newly elected Pope Innocent X launched an investigation into members of the Barberini family. Later the Barberini reconciled with the papacy when Pope Innocent X elevated Taddeo's son, Carlo Barberini to the cardinalate and his brother Maffeo Barberini married a niece of the Pope and reclaimed the title Prince of Palestrina.
Two members of the Barberini family were named Cardinal-Bishop of the Diocese of Palestrina: Antonio Barberini and Francesco Barberini, the son of Maffeo Barberini.
The Barberini Palace originally included the Nile mosaic of Palestrina.