Villa del Priorato di Malta
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Villa del Priorato di Malta or Magistral Villa,[1] located on the Aventine Hill in Rome, is one of the two institutional seats of the government of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Along with Magistral Palace, the estate is granted extraterritorial status by Italy. It also hosts the Grand Priory of Rome and the embassy of the Sovereign Order of Malta to Italy.[2]
The site, on a rise directly overlooking the Tiber and access to the Roman Pons Sublicius, was already a fortified Benedictine monastery in the tenth century. The monastery passed to the Templars and after the destruction of their order, to the Knights Hospitallers, predecessors of the present Order of Malta. Radical rebuilding was undertaken in the 15th through 17th centuries. The villa was granted extraterritoriality in 1869.[3] On the piano nobile is an assemblage of portraits of the Grand Masters of the Order.
