CASTELLO SILJ

THE SILJ CASTLE - ON THE FLAMINIA

The Castle of Cardinal Silj built in the early eighteen hundreds in neo-Gothic style, rises non a hillock positioned along the Tiber, twixt Via Flaminia and Via Cassia. The ground had belonged to Livia Drusilla, wife of the Emperor Augustus, who there erected one of the most renowned imperial residences of Roman history. Known as the villa "ad gallinas albas" (At the White Hens), Livia's dwelling was mentioned by Pliny, Svetonius and Cassius Dionysius owing to an extraordinary event that decided the Villa's name. An eagle in flight let fall in Livia's lap a white hen with a sprig of laurel in its beak. The diviners of the era decided to breed the hen and plant the sprig, from whence a woodlet of laurel grew, which, in turn, the Caesars gathered for their crowning ceremonies. The rooms of the villa were decorated with frescoes and mosaics, discovered in 1863 during an archeological excavation of the area, together with the celebrated statue of Emperor Auugustus, familiarly called the Augustus of Prima Porta (the first gate). In fact the locality was so named at the start of the XIII century owing to a massive arch of bricks (very likely the remains of an ancient aqueduct that serviced Livia's Villa), but which later became the initial gateway leading into Rome proper for those arriving from the North. Only a pillar of that arch still remains as a supporting post of a little church built in 1629 dedicated to SS. Urbano and Lorenzo. The Via Flaminia that skirts the present castle is a consular road initiated in 223 BC ad completed in 219 BC to link Rome with Rimini on the Adriatic coast.
The land on which once reigned an ancient Roman temple and Livia Drusilla's romantic villa, was donated during the Middle Ages by the papal authorities to a patrician family that held it until the outset of the XX Century.
A half century later, shortly after the ravages of the second World War, a young, ascending film producer, Franco Cristaldi, bought the property and its surrounding lands anc, at once, recreated the extraordinary, pristine beauty fo its formal gardens, covering an expanse of seventeen hectares. It was in this wondrous setting that his greatest achievements matured, the fruits of his collaboration and friendship with many of the outstanding and creative personalities of Italian cinema: from Federico Fellini to Pietro Germi, from Marcello Mastroianni to Giuseppe Tornatore. Here masterpieces took shape; works that were honored with Oscars, with over 16 David di Donatello and 46 Nastri d'argento (Italy's Oscar and Film Critics Award). It was in this environment that visions, insights and the stuff that dreams are made of became at once true art, then later a style that paved the way to a school of refined elegance.