ALBANO, Lake of, about thirteen miles S.E. from Rome, is of a beautiful oval form, surrounded with high wooded banks, and about seven miles in circumference. It has long been a favourite object to the painter and the traveller; and on a cliff overhanging the lake is Castel Gandolfo, the only summer residence of the sovereign pontiffs, to which they retire during the unwholesome season at Rome. It has evidently been the crater of an extinct volcano. In the fourth century of ancient Rome, during the siege of Veii, the rise of the waters of this lake was so extraordinary, that the oracle of Delphi was consulted, and it gave no hope of success against Veii, while the Alban lake was allowed thus to swell. This prompted the Romans to drain the lake by an emissary or tunnel cut through the rock, a mile and a half in length, 4 feet wide, and 6 high, which is still perfect. As the nature of the peperino rock is crumbling, the cut is carefully cased with solid masonry. Its upper end is about the level of the ordinary surface of the lake, which is 920 feet above the level of the sea. Ten years after this work was finished, Veii succumbed to her hated rival.
ALBANO is also a town in the kingdom of Naples, remarkable for the fertility of the surrounding territory, and for the nobility of the inhabitants.