‘On a clear day you can see St Peter’s,” said Guiseppe Piacentini, director of the Villa Palazzola, as we stood looking out towards Rome. As it was a glorious April afternoon, we could just make out the dome of the basilica (started by Michelangelo, finished by Carlo Maderno in 1614) from the Venerable English College’s country residence, set in the hills on Lake Albano south of Rome above an extinct volcano.
Founded in 1579 on the site of a 14th-century pilgrimage hostel for English pilgrims, the Venerable English College (VEC) – which has 42 English martyrs in the era of religious intolerance – has owned the Villa Palazzola since 1920 when it was being run as an English Patient-style rehabilitation house for alcoholics until the American troops advancing on Rome moved in.
