Castel Gandolfo historical timeline

The site of the modern town is a candidate for ancient Alba Longa, capital of the Latin League — a claim worth stating carefully, because it remains a candidacy rather than a settled identification. What is not in doubt is that the Emperor Domitian developed the site into a vast palace.

The name comes later and from a family. It derives from a fortification of the ducal Gandolfi family, of Genoese origin and named after St Gondolfus, in the twelfth century. The castle passed to the Savelli, from whom the Apostolic Camera bought it in 1596 for 150,000 scudi.

Clement VIII (1592–1605) was the first pope to come to Castel Gandolfo, but the rebuilding of the old castle was the project of Urban VIII, who first made it an official papal residence in 1626 — the date from which the town's modern identity runs, and which makes 2026 its four hundredth year.

During the Napoleonic Wars, some nine hundred anti-French citizens of neighbouring Velletri held out here, resisting a siege by Joachim Murat.

The episode that most deserves to be remembered is from the Second World War. Pius XII opened the grounds of Castel Gandolfo to refugees escaping the fighting around Rome. On 22 January 1944 the first of what became twelve thousand people began arriving, often bringing their cows, horses, mules and sheep with them; many were Roman Jews, and others were not Catholic at all. During the time they lived there thirty-six children were born, almost all of whom were named after the pope who had given them shelter, and the pope's own private apartment was turned into a nursery.

In recent years the papal use lapsed and then returned. The palace was turned into a museum and opened to the public, and in July 2025 the complex resumed its traditional status as the pope's summer residence, with Leo XIV staying six weeks — at Villa Barberini, since the main Apostolic Palace remains a museum.