Pamphilj Palace is located in the center of the medieval village of the city of Nettuno. The origins of the building presumably date back to 1600. It was called with the name of “Casino Cesi“, owned by the family until 1648. On 30 September of that year the palace was sold by Federico Cesi, Duke of Acquasparta, to Camillo of the Pamphilj family. Then he expanded it with a series of purchases of adjacent buildings, until it achieved its current form in 1648-50.
The characteristics of the Pamphilj Palace
The characteristic decorations observed in Pamphilj Palace are found in the tympanum of the windows. There the symbol of the family is carved: the Pamphilian dove with the olive branch and the lily on the jambs. On the entrance door there is the noble emblem of Camillo and Olimpia Pamphilj-Aldobrandini. There are the three lilies, the dove with the olive branch, the crenellated band with the eight-pointed star.
Precisely in the palace of Nettuno, Giovan Battista Pamphilj-Aldobrandini, known as Pope Innocenzo X, hosts the papal court. It’s gathered here from Sunday 21st to Thursday 25th April 1697, to proceed with the technical-estimative visit of the port of Anzio.
One of Camillo’s sons was Cardinal Benedetto. He would become plenipotentiary of the port of Anzio, appointed by Pope Innocent XII in 1700. Late in life, Benedetto retired to the family palace in Nettuno. Then he surrounded himself with poets, musicians and men of letters.
Benedetto died on 22 March 1730 and was succeeded by his nephew Camillo junior. The last Pamphilj is Anna, who in 1761 married Giovanni Andrea Doria III, originally from Genoa. Among the last descendants of this family, we remember Philip Andrea VI, who at the end of the Second World War was elected mayor of Rome.
The ancient legacy of the Borghese family
In 1769, the Borghese family, by virtue of Olimpia Aldobrandini’s first marriage to Paolo, entered into the Aldobrandini inheritance and therefore into the ownership of the Palace of Nettuno. In 1847 the palace passed to Francesco Borghese-Aldobrandini. He was Napoleon Bonaparte’s general, who later married Adele de la Rochefoucauld. With the advent of the Borghese family, due to Adele’s charitable work, the palace was entrusted to the French Sisters of the Cross to run a school. Now it run by the Collegiate Church of SS. John the Baptist and Evangelist.
