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All images © by Roberto Piperno, owner of the domain. Write to romapip@quipo.it. Text edited by Rosamie Moore.

To the visitors of my web site

From Civitavecchia to Civita Castellana Sutri, Bassano and Monterosi

Sutri

The history of the State of the Church started in Sutri in 728. At that time Italy was split between the Longobards, who had invaded the peninsula in the VIth century and the Byzantine Empire. The Longobards, who were ruled by a king elected by the dukes, occupied most of Italy while the Byzantines retained control over Ravenna, Rome, Naples and a few other coastal areas. The Longobard king Liutprand conquered many Byzantine territories near Ravenna and in 728 he moved with his army towards Rome, but he desisted from conquering the city at the request of Pope Gregorius II to whom he donated the town of Sutri, which thus became the first possession of the Church: this explains why this part of the state was called for centuries Patrimonium Petri.

View of Sutri
View of Sutri

Sutri was founded by the Etruscans on a tufaceous hill at the confluence of two streams. It was conquered by the Romans in 389 BC and it flourished under their rule because of its position on the Via Cassia. Part of Sutri is on higher ground (acropoli) and notwithstanding the fact that it is now occupied by the Cathedral and by Palazzo Vescovile (bishop's palace) it still conveys the image of a fortress.

Porta Vecchia, Palazzo Vescovile and the bell tower of the Cathedral
Porta Vecchia, Palazzo Vescovile and the bell tower of the Cathedral

The main medieval buildings of Sutri retain something of the Etruscan and Roman times and this applies to the whole town.

Signs of the past
Signs of the past

Reliefs, fragments of statues and of columns can be found in many places. The large Etruscan relief shown in the image above is walled in the courtyard of Palazzo Comunale: it shows a sphinx (the Etruscans had a fancy for fantastic monsters). In the XIIIth century Viterbo hosted the Papal court for long periods and the medieval fountain shown in the background of this page has the typical shape of the Viterbo fountains.

Clock, Fountain and coat of arms of Urbanus VIII
Clock, Fountain and coat of arms of Pope Urbanus VIII

Sutri has also some interesting memories of the Baroque period. The XVIIth century clock shown in the picture is one of the very few which is still geared to indicate the Italian hour (another one is in the courtyard of Palazzo del Commendatore in Spedale di S. Spirito in Rome). The clock shows 6 rather than 12 hours and it has just one pointer (in this clock a ray of the sun). The pointer reached 6 at sunset and this in every period of the year, because the clock was reset every two weeks to take care of the changes in the duration of daylight, so the Italian hour was indicating what was left of the day before sunset. When J. W. Goethe visited Italy in 1786 the Italian hour was still used in all parts of the country; Goethe gave a very detailed explanation of how it worked in his Italienische Reisen. The French occupation of Rome at the beginning of the XIXth century introduced the European hour, but in 1815 the State of the Church returned to the Italian hour and Stendhal explained the Italian hour in his 1827 Promenade dans Rome. S. Pietro, S. Agnese in Agone, and Trinità dei Monti had two clocks which showed both the Italian and the European hour (which was called Ultramontana - beyond the mountains, with reference to the Alps).

The Mithraeum
The Mithraeum

Tufa can be easily cut and since the most ancient periods the inhabitants of the area exploited this property of tufa to create artificial caves, tombs, cellars, stables. In a wood immediately outside Sutri there is a church (Madonna del Parto) cut into the rock. Experts have come to the conclusion that the site was initially an Etruscan tomb, which in the IIIrd century AD was modified by the followers of the god Mithras, a Persian god identified with the sun and widely worshipped in Rome. The cult was celebrated in underground sites rather than in temples. In the IVth century the Christian faith gradually became the official religion of the Roman Empire and the mithraeum was turned into a church (S. Clemente and S. Prisca in Rome are both churches built on the site of a mithraeum).

Amphitheatre
The Amphitheatre

Sutri has an even more impressive example of exploitation of the properties of tufa. The Romans identified an isolated circular hillock not far from Sutri and they cut it to obtain an amphitheatre for the town. The amphitheatre had internal corridors and stairs to allow easy access to the gradines (stepped seating). There is no sign of brickwork; all the facilities were obtained by cutting the rock.

Bassano

Bassano was a minor fief of the Anguillara, until it was acquired in 1595 by Vincenzo Giustiniani. He was the son of Giuseppe Giustiniani who had left the island of Scio in the Aegean Sea, when the Ottomans had occupied it. The Giustiniani were very rich and after the father had bought a stately mansion in Rome, the son thought it necessary to possess a fiefdom in order to better justify the role the family was acquiring in the Roman aristocracy.

View of the tufa rock, main gate and main street of Bassano
The tufa rock, main gate and main street of Bassano

The Giustiniani gave to their new acquisition a Renaissance appearance, by levelling the surface of the tufa rock upon which Bassano rests and by opening in the rock a grand gate leading to the town. The main street of Bassano is still dedicated to a pious member of the Giustiniani family although the Giustiniani sold their fiefdom to the Odescalchi back in 1854.

Palazzo Giustiniani Odescalchi and Chiesa di Santa Maria Assunta
Palazzo Giustiniani Odescalchi and Chiesa di Santa Maria Assunta

Vincenzo Giustiani built a Renaissance palace, maybe designed by il Vignola, linked by a bridge to a large garden. The Giustiniani built also the church in the main square of Bassano.

Inscription celebrating Vincenzo Giustiniani, coat of arms of the Giustiniani between those of the Borghese and the Boncompagni Ludovisi and one of the gigantic bust in the main square
Inscription celebrating Vincenzo Giustiniani, coat of arms of the Giustiniani between those of the Borghese and the Boncompagni Ludovisi and one of the gigantic busts in the main square

Vincenzo Giustiniani was a great and competent collector of works of art and not only of ancient sculptures as he bought 15 paintings by Caravaggio. Giustiniani ordered a detailed and illustrated catalog of his own collection: the resulting two volumes La Raccolta Giustiniani (1631) document more than 300 sculptures, reliefs and paintings. This explains why the main square of Bassano is decorated with four gigantic busts. Most of the works of art collected by Vincenzo Giustiniani were bought in 1826 by the King of Prussia and can be seen in Berlin.

Monterosi

This part of Latium is characterized by a certain number of lakes of volcanic origin. The smallest ones have been drained at different stages with the exception of the circular pond near the little town of Monterosi.

The volcanic pond of Monterosi
The volcanic pond of Monterosi

In the past Monterosi was just a handful of houses along Via Cassia; notwithstanding its limited size Monterosi has a fine palace built in 1690 by Giovanni Battista Contini for the Altieri family (the palace is currently known as Palazzo Del Drago and it is under restoration), a main church with a rich Baroque decoration (with the star of the Altieri) and a little church (S. Giuseppe) with Renaissance and Baroque elements.

Decoration inside the main church and S. Giuseppe
Decoration inside the main church and S. Giuseppe


From Civitavecchia to Civita Castellana - other pages:
Civitavecchia, Allumiere and Tolfa
Oriolo Romano and Caprarola
Nepi and Castel Sant'Elia
Civita Castellana

Pages on towns of Latium other than Rome In the Duchy of Castro: Farnese, Ischia di Castro, Valentano, Gradoli, Capodimonte, Marta In Maremma: Corneto (Tarquinia), Montalto, Canino A Pilgrim's Way: Via Francigena: Acquapendente, Bolsena, Montefiascone In and about Viterbo: Viterbo, Bagnoregio, S. Martino al Cimino, Tuscania, Bomarzo, S. Maria della Querce, Bagnaia, Orte, Vasanello, Vitorchiano From Civitavecchia to Civita Castellana: Civitavecchia, Tolfa, Allumiere, Oriolo Romano, Capranica, Sutri, Bassano, Monterosi, Nepi, Castel d'Elia, Civita Castellana From Bracciano to Viterbo: Manziana, Canale Monterano, Vejano, Barbarano, Blera, Vetralla Around Monte Cimino: Ronciglione, Caprarola, Carbognano, Fabrica, Corchiano, Vignanello, Vallerano, Soriano The Bracciano Lake: Bracciano, Trevignano, Anguillara At the foot of Monte Soratte: S. Oreste, Rignano, Faleria Land of the Romans' wives: Montopoli, Poggio Mirteto, Casperia, Cantalupo, Roccantica Sentinels on the Highway: Fiano Romano, Civitella S. Paolo, Nazzano, Torrita Tiberina, Filacciano, Ponzano Along Via Aurelia: Palidoro, Palo, S. Severa and S. Marinella A Walk to Malborghetto: Prima Porta, Malborghetto Branching off Via Cassia: S. Maria di Galeria, Formello, Isola Farnese To Nomentum and beyond: Mentana, Monterotondo, Palombara A Walk to Ponte di Nona: ancient monuments along Via Prenestina Via Appia Antica A short and delicious digression: Tivoli, Montecompatri, Monte Porzio Catone, Frascati, Grottaferrata, Marino, Castelgandolfo, Albano, Ariccia, Genzano, Velletri, Nemi, Rocca di Papa, Rocca Priora, Civita Lavinia (Lanuvio), Porto, Ostia Where the painters found their models: Anticoli Corrado, Castelmadama, Vicovaro, Arsoli Subiaco The Roman Campagna: Palestrina, Genazzano, Paliano, Anagni The Ernici Mountains: Ferentino, Alatri The Volsci Mountains: Valmontone, Colonna, Segni, Norma, Cori On the Latin Shores: Anzio, Nettuno, Torre Astura On the edge of the marsh: Sermoneta, Sezze, Priverno Circe's Cape: S. Felice, Terracina Veroli Branching off Via Flaminia: Riano, Castelnuovo di Porto, Morlupo, Leprignano (Capena)

Latium was enlarged in the 1920s with territories from the neighbouring regions: the map on the left shows the current borders of Latium; the map on the right has links to pages covering towns of historical Latium: in order to see them you must hover and click on the dots.