Monte Porzio Catone has 8,617 inhabitants in the Alban Hills, at four hundred and fifty-one metres, and it has an ancient city behind it: the archaeological area of Tusculum falls entirely within its territory. The name comes from the gens Porcia, which had a villa here: in the eleventh century the place was called Monte Porculi, a corruption of Mons Porcii, and appears so in a bull of Gregory VII of 1074. The «Catone» was added in 1872, to distinguish it from the Monte Porzio of the Marche.
Above the town, in 1607, the Camaldolese of Monte Corona founded the Tusculan hermitage: it welcomes those who come, but a rule still in force forbids women to enter. Not far off, the astronomical observatory was built over the remains of the Roman villa of Matidia, a close relative of the emperor Hadrian; designed in 1939 and finished in 1965, it also served as a set for the film about the boys of via Panisperna. The wine made here, however, carries the name of the neighbouring comune: it is Frascati.
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📅 Every year, on 2 September
Monte Porzio Catone celebrates Saint Antoninus the Martyr on 2 September: in September the town comes alive with the feast in his honour.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside Monte Porzio Catone, but an easy day trip away.
