Monday,
November 13, 2006
"TomKat"
Wedding at Castello Odescalchi
at Lake Bracciano
Tom
Cruise and Kathy Holmes arrived in Rome
one week prior to their Celebrity-studded Wedding
to be attended by 250 Guests at Castello Odescalchi.
Castello Odescalchi.rose from
one of the numerous towers built in the tenth century as a defence
against the Saracen attacks. In the eleventh century the territory was acquired
by the Prefetti di Vico
family, who turned the tower into a castle. The area was later acquired by the
Roman hospital of
Santo Spirito
in Sassia and, from 1375, was a Papal possession.
In 1419 Pope Martin V gave the fief of Bracciano
to the Orsini family branch of Tagliacozzo. Under this powerful family the city developed
into a flourishing town, famous in the whole of Italy for its castle. In 1481
it housed Pope Sixtus IV, who had fled from the
plague in Rome.
Four years later, however, the city and the castle were ravaged by Papal troops
under Prospero Colonna and subsequently a new line of walls was built.
In 1494 Charles VII of France
and his troops marching against Rome
stopped at Bracciano. This act led to the
excommunication of the Orsini, and in 1496 the city
was besieged by a papal army, though it resisted. The sixteenth century was a
period of splendour for Bracciano.
In 1558 the notorious Paolo GiordanoI Orsini, marrying Isabella de' Medici, daughter of Cosimo I, Grand Duke of
Tuscany, received the title of duke of Bracciano.
However, the
expensive tenor of life of the Orsini eventually
damaged the economic conditions of the city. The last great ruler was probably
Paolo Giordano II, a patron of arts and literature which made Bracciano a center of culture in Italy. The decline culminated in
1696 with the cession of the fief to the Odescalachi
family, who still retain the castle.
Cruise arrives
in Italy
for wedding
From
correspondents in Rome
HOLLYWOOD star
Tom Cruise arrived in Rome ahead of his weekend wedding to US actress Katie
Holmes at a 12th century castle on Lake Bracciano
near the Italian capital.
He flew in to Rome's Ciampino airport from California aboard a private jet with an entourage of 10
people....and joined his fiancee
at Rome's Hotel
Hassler....
Cruise, 44, and
Holmes, 27, one of Hollywood's most visible
couples, will tie the knot on Saturday at the Odescalchi Castle,
about 30km outside Rome....
Cruise and Holmes
announced their engagement in June 2005 in Paris,
less than three months after being spotted together in Italy. Their
daughter Suri was born on April 18 in the United States.
It will be
Holmes's first marriage and the third for Cruise, who was married between 1987
and 1990 to actress Mimi Rogers and from 1990 to 2001 to Nicole Kidman, with
whom he adopted two children.
Celebrities To Flock to Cruise/Holmes Wedding
Tom Cruise and
Katie Holmes' Italian wedding will be a star-studded affair, with a guest list
including John Travolta and his wife, Kelly Preston, Kirstie
Alley, David and Victoria Beckham and tenor Andrea Bocelli.
Private jets
carrying the wedding-bound superstars are expected to touch down into Rome as early as Tuesday
in preparation for Saturday's wedding at a medieval castle, Castello Odescalchi.
But before the
wedding, Cruise and Holmes will throw a lavish party for the 250 guests at Dal Bolognese in Piazza del Popolo,
reports the New York Daily News.
Cruise flew into
a Rome airport
on a private jet Monday, airport officials said, setting off a
frenzy among media and fans anticipating the star's high-profile wedding
to Katie Holmes.
Cruise arrived at
Rome's small Ciampino
airport from Los Angeles
with about 10 people, including his mother and his three children, airport
officials said. (AP contributed to this report)
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