Tower of Quadraro

 

 

 

Among the tall modern buildings in Piazza dei Consoli is the ancient architectural complex Quadraro, consisting of a massive square tower battlements Ghibellines incorporated in the buildings of an old farmhouse, dating from the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. Its name originates from G. G. Guadralis, leaseholder (the person to whom an owner ceded his fund in exchange for an annual fee in cash or in-grown produce), the mid-twelfth century, the land on which later the house is planted. The tower, in tuff blocks, fragments of marble and brick pieces, was erected in the fourteenth century, probably as a replacement for an earlier structure and in every way above an older building, as evidenced by the presence of walls in "uncertain work", referring to the Republican age Roman. The ancient site is demonstrated by several important discoveries made since 1776, the funerary inscriptions and sculptural material, which have led to the hypothesis of the complex in the presence of a residential villa. Casale Quatralis, then Quadrarium and finally - from the fourteenth century - Quadraro, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was to the Monastery of S. Alessio relevance; in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries passed into the hands of Arcioni and Astalli, then, in the next century, he ended up among the possessions of the powerful family of the Colonna; in more recent times the complex Quadraro was inserted into the large estates of Old Rome, Torlonia properties.