page_title: Monte Cavo
section_title: Ancient temple, hermitage, hotel, station
hierarchical_section_title: Monte Cavo / Ancient temple, hermitage, hotel, station
caption_attribution_description: English: The structure on the top of the hill, Monte Cavo
context_page_description: Monte Cavo, or less occasionally, "Monte Albano," is the second highest mountain of the complex of the Alban Hills, near Rome, Italy. An old volcano extinguished around 10,000 years ago, it lies about 20 km from the sea, in the territory of the comune of Rocca di Papa. It is the dominant peak of the Alban Hills. The current name comes from Cabum, an Italic settlement existing on this mountain.
  Volcanic activity under king Tullus Hostilius on the site was reported by Livy in his book of Roman history: "...there had been a shower of stones on the Alban Mount...".
context_section_description: The history of the temple of Iuppiter Latiaris was interrupted in the Early Middle Ages, when a hermitage devoted to Saint Peter which replaced the pagan temple was built by a Dalmatian hermit. It  was visited by Pope Pius II in 1463, and subsequently by Pope Alexander VII. After the Dalmatian hermits the Polish religious order of Edmondo of Buisson was established there, then the Trinitarian Spaniards, and finally the Flemish Missionaries.
  Then the hermitage was converted to a monastery (1727). The Passionists came in 1758 and restored it in 1783, using the materials of the temple of Jupiter, as found and raised by  Henry Benedict Stuart, Duke of York, bishop of Frascati.
  During this period there were guests in the monastery: the king Francis II of Naples in 1865 and Pope Pius IX in  1867. The "contemplative-missionaries" abandoned the monastery in 1889.
  In 1890 the structure was converted to an hotel that entertained national and international personalities, among others: Umberto II of Italy, Massimo d'Azeglio, Luigi Pirandello, Armando Diaz (who sojourned in Rocca di Papa and was remembered with a commemorative headstone mail in the residence on De Rossi palace) and the King Edward VIII with his wife Wallis Simpson.
  From 1942 the hotel was used as military base for radio communications by the German Wehrmacht. On June 3, 1944, soldiers of 142nd Regiment-36th Infantry Division (United States) ("Texas" Division), attacked and captured the military site—with 20 enemy soldiers killed and 30 prisoners taken.
  In the post-war era the structure became a telecommunications station. Access is prohibited to unauthorized persons. A few blocks of the ancient temple are still visible behind the fenced area. The unsightly presence of the antennae has been a cause of some civil complaint.
caption: The same structure used as a telecommunications station at the end of the 20th century.
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