 Venue
Centro Congressi Villa Mondragone
Via Frascati, 51
Monte Porzio Catone
See "Travel Information" page
Microrad 2012 will be held at Villa Mondragone Conference Center, now owned by Tor Vergata University of Rome, situated between the towns of Frascati and Monte Porzio Catone. It lies on a hill 416 m. above sea-level, in the area of the ancient Roman town of Tusculum, called Castelli Romani (Alban Hills), about 20 kms south-east of Rome.
Villa Mondragone is one of the most beautiful of the Renaissance Tusculum villas which were created as summer residences for the papal court during the 16th century. Its construction was commissioned in 1573 by Cardinal Marco Sittico Altemps in order to satisfy the wish of Pope Gregorio XIII. He was a regular guest of the villa, so that it was finally called Mondragone (the Mountain of the Dragon) from the dragon in the heraldic symbol of the Boncompagni Pope family.
The magnificent Mondragone building has always had a synergic association with science, technology, knowledge and its diffusion. In 1582, during his stay here, Pope Gregorio XIII promulgated the document (the papal bull Inter gravissimas) which initiated the reform of the calendar now in use and known as the Gregorian calendar.
In 1611, the Casino of Mondragone had been chosen as a visual reference during an observation from Rome guided by Galileo Galilei, with a new instrument that he had improved: the telescope. The experiment - that helped the scientist to enter the newly founded Accademia dei Lincei - demonstrated the new instrumentís performances, which from the Gianicolo hill in Rome, allowed him to see the palaceís architectonic-structural details in the Tusculum area.
The period in which the bond between the palace, science and "knowledge" was at its peak, was most certainly - rather recent - that of the Nobile Collegio Mondragone held by the Jesuits at the Villa for nearly a century (1865-1953). Indeed, ever since its creation this teaching structure shaped itself into what nowadays are known as "schools of excellence"; in fact, Cabinets of Chemistry, Physics, Natural Science and Scientific Laboratories were originally started, as a result of the Jesuits' educational mission (already tough, and praised by many for its humanistic studies).
Given its particular location, the site of Villa Mondragone was chosen, during the Collegio, to assess new transmission techniques, among which the one developed by Guglielmo Marconi in 1932 with the experiments of ground radio link using ultra short waves. This telecommunication experiment was eased by the Villa's unique location with respect to Rome, which, once again, validated the outstanding visibility with Rome, as previously proved during Galileo's telescope experiment
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