Villa Rufinella

[1] In 1804 Pope Pius VII sold the Villa to prince Lucien Bonaparte during his self-imposed exile in Rome.

Prince Lucien started the first excavations in the area of the villa and in the territory of Tusculum, sending many of the artifacts found to Paris to be sold on the antiques market.

In 1817 a group of bandits of the famous band of robber Gasperoni, commanded by Tommaso Transerici, tried to kidnap the Prince Lucien during one of his parties in the gardens.

In 1834, to commemorate his stay as a guest in the villa, Italian poet Giuseppe Gioachino Belli wrote a sonnet in Roman dialect called "La Rufinella".

Since 1966 the Villa Rufinella has been owned by the Salesians of Don Bosco, a Roman Catholic religious society: they have restored the building and turned it into a conference hotel.