Alessandro Torlonia, 2nd Prince di Civitella-Cesi

Alessandro Torlonia Raffaele ( born January 1, 1800, Rome, † February 7, 1886 in Rome ) was an Italian nobleman, banker, entrepreneur and art collector.

Family

Alessandro comes from the Torlonia family, among other things, in the 18th and 19th centuries the Vatican's finances managed and had come to a large fortune. He was the second son of the banker Giovanni Torlonia and bore the title of Duke of Ceri, Prince of Fucino. He married Teresa Colonna - Doria (1823-1875) with whom he had two daughters, Anna Maria (1855-1901) and Giovanna Carolina ( 1856-1875 ). Anna Maria Torlonia married in 1872 Giulio Borghese, who was second marriage of Prince Fucino and 1873 took the name Torlonia. After his death, his title fell to Augusto Torlonia, the grandson of his elder brother Giulio Torlonia.

Life

Alessandro was the heir to a large fortune. After his father's death he continued the expansion of the Villa Torlonia in Rome and who converted parts of the garden after the pattern of an English landscape garden. He also expanded the artistic heritage of the Torlonia, built in 1859, the Museo Torlonia and acquired in 1866, Villa Albani.

His legacy of Lake Fucino belonged in the province of L' Aquila, which again caused flooding of the surrounding villages by fluctuating water levels and a hotbed of malaria was. Torlonia commissioned the Swiss engineer Franz Mayor de Mont Richer with the draining of the lake and took over full funding of the project. The Swiss began in 1862 with the construction of a 6.3 km long canal, which was completed in 1878. In the first stages of draining some ancient Roman sculptures, reliefs and other relics were found that enriched the collection of the Torlonia. For the drainage and reclamation of the lake Torlonio was honored by Vittorio Emmanuele II with the hereditary title of Prince of Fucino and a gold medal.