The church of Santa Maria ad Nives of Palazzolo (also called of Palazzola) is a Catholic place of worship located in the municipality of Rocca di Papa, in the province of Rome, in the suburbicarian diocese of Frascati. Next to the church stands the former convent of the Friars Minor Observant.
The convent, which already existed in the 11th century, stands in a picturesque place overlooking Lake Albano: amidst alternate events it reached its period of maximum splendor around the middle of the 18th century, with the architectural interventions promoted by Bishop José Maria Ribeiro da Fonseca de Évora. The convent was a protectorate of the Kingdom of Portugal from 1870 to 1910, until it was handed over to private individuals in 1915. Since 1920 it has hosted a summer stay for seminarians from the Venerable English College.
History
Ancient age
The Alban Hills were subject between about 600,000 and 20,000 years ago to the volcanic activity of the Latian Volcano, which generated the present environmental setting in which the convent is located: at the foot of Monte Cavo (949 m a.s.l.), an ancient secondary volcanic crater of the Latian Volcano, overlooks Lake Albano, a volcanic lake that fills what was also a volcanic crater.
Most likely this was the site of the legendary city of Alba Longa, which according to the account of Dionysius of Halicarnassus was founded by Aeneas's son Ascanius thirty years after the founding of Lavinium, "near a mountain and a lake, occupying the space between the two." This description given by the respected historiographer has led many scholars to suspect that the site of the ancient city was located on the southern side of the lake, between the Colle dei Cappuccini in the municipality of Albano Laziale and the Palazzolo convent: although other influential scholars have opted for other sites, such as the eastern side of Lake Albano included between the localities of Costa Caselle near Marino and Pozzo Carpino in the municipality of Grottaferrata, or the western side of the lake, at the site of the present-day historic center of Castel Gandolfo, currently the most probable hypothesis appears to be the former, so much so that on the Map of Italy drawn up by the Military Geographical Institute the toponym of Alba Longa is placed side by side with that of Palazzolo.
Following the destruction of Alba, conventionally dated to 673 B.C. and in any case datable to the 6th century B.C., the Alban Hills did not lose a character of sacredness linked to the origins of Rome: the "Via Sacra" passed through Palazzolo, which reached the temple of Latian Jupiter located on the summit of Monte Cavo, connecting with the Via Appia Antica near present-day Ariccia. Along this road is a characteristic rock tomb dug into the peperino for about 40 meters wide. The inner cell is 2.60 meters by 2.26 meters large, and the bas-reliefs depict a triumph: the fasces depicted here were used by archaeologist Giacomo Boni as a model for the fasces used as a symbol by the National Fascist Party. The attribution of the tomb is uncertain, however there are those who thought it might have belonged to someone of the Cornelii Scipiones.
From the early Middle Ages to the 14th century
The first mention regarding the existence of some sort of hermitage in Palazzolo is said to date from 1050, or at the latest from 1109. At the time of Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) the church belonged to the Cluniac monks of the basilica of San Saba in Rome, and only in 1204 it was granted to a community of hermits. Pope Honorius III in 1220 forced this community to join the Order of St. Augustine, in order to avoid the excessive multiplication of religious orders often bordering on heresy.
Finally, Pope Gregory IX with the papal bull of August 13, 1237 decreed the union of the hermits of Palazzolo with the Cistercian monks of the Abbey of the Three Fountains in Rome: Cardinal Stefano de' Normanni, a relative of the feudal lady of Marino Jacoba of Settesoli, had also committed himself to this. The Cistercian monks, in view of the poor geographical and climatic position in which the Tre Fontane abbey was located, situated in the middle of a malarial valley along the via Laurentina, obtained since 1225 the possibility of moving in the summer to their more salubrious fief of Nemi (a Cistercian possession since 1153) and to the Palazzolo convent.