TORLONIA, CARLO. — Born in Rome on 18 Dec. 1798, died there on 31 Dec. 1847.
Second son of Giovanni Raimondo, the renowned financier who secured the fortunes of the Torlonia family, Carlo—like his elder brother Marino Jr.—left behind remarkable artistic collections from the early 19th century. He also assembled other distinguished collections, primarily archaeological, in his residences in Borgo, at Lungara, and in the Villa formerly belonging to the Albani family on Via Salaria. Roman chronicles of the last century are filled with accounts of his life and the lavish entertainments he hosted, attended by sovereigns, royal princes, cardinals, and the most illustrious names of European aristocracy.
He married Princess Teresa Colonna, by whom he had two daughters; one, Anna Maria, wed Don Giulio Borghese, who assumed the Torlonia surname to perpetuate the princely title of Fucino. Torlonia indeed obtained this title from Victor Emmanuel II after he had accomplished, through titanic effort, the draining of the eponymous Abruzzese lake, reclaiming vast estates that were immediately placed under intensive cultivation. The enterprise, which lasted from 1854 to 1875, cost Torlonia over 34 million lire and rendered more than 16,000 hectares cultivable. To devote himself to this colossal work, Torlonia ceded all his other enterprises to others (the bank, in 1862, to the noted historian Giuseppe Spada [v.]), determined to succeed where so many earlier attempts had failed, beginning with that of the Emperor Claudius, who nonetheless possessed the resources of the Roman world.
Torlonia took no active part in the politics of his time; in 1848 he declined Pius IX’s appointment to the High Council; and though in the following year, during the Mazzinian Republic, he consented to sit on the Rome city council, he did so solely to prevent, through his own authority, any possible squandering of public funds—so much so that, after the restoration, he did not lose the Pope’s trust and esteem.