Grottaferrata () is a small town and comune in the Metropolitan City of Rome, situated on the lower slopes of the Alban Hills, south east of Rome. It has grown up around the Abbey of Santa Maria di Grottaferrata, founded in 1004. Nearby communes include Frascati, Rocca di Papa, Marino and Rome. History The history of Grottaferrata identifies largely with that of the Basilian Monastery of Santa Maria, founded here in 1004 by Saint Nilus the Younger. The founding legend narrates that, at the spot where the abbey now stands, the Virgin Mary appeared and bade him found a church in her honour. From Gregory, the powerful Count of Tusculum, father of Popes Benedict VIII and John XIX, Nilus obtained the site, which had been a Roman villa, where among the ruins there remained a low edifice of opus quadratum that had been a tomb but had been converted to a Christian oratory in the fourth century. Its iron window grates gave the site the name, first of Cryptaferrata ("ironbound crypt") then of Grottaferrata, commemorated in the coat-of-arms of the commune. From the site, a Roman bronze of a man and a cow attracted the antiquarian attention of Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, who had the group removed to Lucera. Nilus died soon afterwards (26 December 1005) in the Sant' Agata monastery in Tusculum. The monastic building was carried out by his successors, especially the fourth abbot, Saint Bartholomew, who is usually considered the second founder. Building materials scavenged from the ruined villa were incorporated into the new structure, marble columns, sections of carved cornice, and blocks of the volcanic stone called peperino. The sanctuary was complete enough in 1024 to be consecrated by the Tusculan Pope John XIX. The high repute of the monks attracted many gifts; eleventh- and thirteenth-century mosaics remain, but of the ambitious ensemble of Cosmatesque inlay, only the polychrome stone paving remains. The abbey's possessions in lands were numerous and widespread, and in 1131 King Roger II of Sicily made the abbot Baron of Rossano with an extensive fief. Between the 12th and 15th centuries the monastery suffered from the continual strife of warring factions: Romans and Tusculans, Guelphs and Ghibellines, popes and antipopes, Colonna and Orsini. From 1163 till the destruction of Tusculum in 1191, the greater part of the monastic community sought refuge in a dependency of the abbey, the Benedictine protocaenobium of