Cittaducale (RI)

Cittaducale (RI) occupies the Colle di Cerreto Piano along Via Salaria, 10 kilometers from Rieti and a little under 90 from Rome. The town hall is at Corso Mazzini 111, the switchboard answers at 0746 60801. You get there by car from the Salaria (SS 4), taking the exit for SP 12 that climbs to the village, or by train on the regional Terni-Rieti-L'Aquila line: the Cittaducale station is on the plain, in the frazione of Santa Rufina, and from the forecourt to the historic center you need the connecting bus or a taxi, because on foot the climb is long. The historic center is open and free: it has no ticket office, no turnstiles, no hours. Only the individual monuments have hours, and they are parish and monastery hours, so variable: the Benedictine Museum of Santa Caterina d'Alessandria, at Piazza Marchesi 9, can be visited by calling 0746 602106. For the Duomo of Santa Maria del Popolo and for Sant'Agostino it is best to aim for the morning or late afternoon opening slots, and to inquire at the parish. For guided tours, information on special openings and the calendar of events, the reference is the Comune of Cittaducale and the municipal tourism portal.

If you arrive from Rome, the Salaria brings you here in barely an hour and a half outside rush hours. The stretch up to Rieti is wide and straight, and from Rieti toward L'Aquila the road becomes a fast-flowing road. Those traveling without a car can combine the regional train to Rieti with the intercity buses of the Lazio network. Cittaducale is a full half-day destination, or a full-day one if you add the Terme di Cotilia and Lake Paterno, which are a few minutes by car along the same Salaria.

To place the area within the rest of Lazio you can start from the page dedicated to Rieti, the provincial capital, and from the one on Terminillo, the mountain that closes the horizon of Cittaducale to the north.

Where Cittaducale (RI) is and how to get there

Geography explains Cittaducale better than any chronicle. The village rests on a modest rise that dominates the western part of the San Vittorino Plain, a flat valley floor that the Velino river crosses at the foot of the hill. To the north rises the Terminillo massif, which exceeds 2,200 meters. To the southeast is the Monte Nuria group. To the east is Monte Giano, the one on whose slope you can still see the pine wood that forms a lettering, reproduced in the 1930s and devastated by the fire of 2017. This basin has always been a crossroads: here passed the Salaria, the salt road that connected Rome to the Adriatic, and here Sabine, Italic and Roman peoples met.

By car from Rome to Cittaducale

The natural route is the SS 4 Salaria. You leave Rome toward the north, pass Passo Corese, skirt the Sabina and arrive in the Rieti basin. Past Rieti the Salaria continues toward L'Aquila. After about 10 kilometers Strada Provinciale 12 branches off and climbs in short hairpin bends toward the historic center of Cittaducale. Pay attention to a detail that escapes those who rely only on the navigator: until 1962 the Salaria passed through the town, then the valley-floor bypass was built, and today many go straight on without noticing the village above their heads. Allow an hour and 20 to an hour and 40 from Rome, much more on summer Sunday returns.

By train: the Cittaducale station

The station is on the regional Terni-Rieti-L'Aquila line, a single-track railway, slow and scenic, which is worth the trip in itself. The building is on the flat, far from the center: whoever gets off has to count on a transfer. The municipal territory also included the Cotilia stop, closed in 2014, and the Sorgenti del Peschiera stop, serving the aqueduct plant and the frazione of Micciani. The 19th-century project of a Salaria Railway connecting Rome to Ascoli Piceno through here was approved several times and never built: it is one of the great missed opportunities of central Italy, and explains why this area remains less served than its position deserves.

By bus from Rieti to Cittaducale

Road connections all run through Rieti, the hub of the regional intercity network. From Rome, the most common option is the direct bus to Rieti and then the local connection. Schedules change between the school year and summer and should be checked on the regional carrier's website before you leave: in a town of just over 6,000 inhabitants, evening runs are sparse and on Sundays they thin out even more.

Parking in Cittaducale

The practical advice: don't try to squeeze inside the walls. The streets in the center are narrow, one-way, and in several spots traffic is restricted. Leave the car in the spaces along the outer ring road, just outside the walls, and enter on foot through Porta Napoli. The full loop of the historic center of Cittaducale takes an hour and a half at a relaxed pace, because the medieval grid is compact and doesn't require any demanding climbs once you're up at the top.

Cittaducale (RI) in a few lines: what to really expect

Let's say it right away, without sugarcoating: Cittaducale is not a postcard village with pots of geraniums and ceramic workshops. It's a real town, with a historic center of extraordinary layout and a building stock that has suffered two devastating earthquakes and a long hemorrhage of population. Anyone who comes looking for the scenic effect of Civita di Bagnoregio will be disappointed. Anyone who comes to understand how a new city was built in the 1300s, with ruler and compass, will have one of the most instructive experiences in northern Lazio.

Because this is the point: Cittaducale is a founded city. It didn't grow by accumulation around a castle or an abbey, like almost all the villages that surround it. It was drawn up on a drafting table in 1308 and built according to that plan, and the plan can still be read today by walking down the street. In Italy, new medieval cities that preserve their original layout can be counted, and this is one of them.

The second reason to come is the surroundings. Within a radius of 10 kilometers there are a Roman thermal archaeological area of imperial rank, a karst lake 54 meters deep that the ancients considered the geographic and religious center of Italy, the Peschiera springs that supply Rome with water, and one of the most interesting nature reserves in Lazio for birdwatching. Cittaducale is the ideal logistical base for all of this.

The founding of Cittaducale in 1308 and the Angevin plan

In 1308 the Kingdom of Naples was ruled by Charles II of Anjou, known as the Lame. The northern border of the Kingdom ran right here, along the line that separated Abruzzo Ulteriore from the Papal States, and that border was porous: Rieti belonged to the papal domain, the castles of the Velino valley squabbled among themselves, raids were the norm. The Angevin response was political before it was military: found a new, fortified city, populate it by moving in the inhabitants of the surrounding castles, and make it the administrative garrison of the border.

Why Charles II of Anjou founded Cittaducale

Founding a new city was not a whim. It served three purposes at once: to concentrate in one defensible spot a population scattered across tiny, indefensible settlements, to create a market and a fiscal seat that would bring money flowing to the crown, and to plant a flag visible to anyone looking from the north. Cittaducale became the northernmost bulwark of the Kingdom after Civitella del Tronto, and kept that role for centuries, even when the Kingdom changed its name and became the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

The operation succeeded. The years immediately after the founding showed that the fortified layout wanted by the Angevins was the right choice: the city found itself repeatedly engaged in withstanding the turbulence of neighboring Rieti, and remained loyal to the Kingdom of Naples with a constancy that earned it privileges. Under the Aragonese, who succeeded the Angevins, Cittaducale obtained the right to mint coins, which for a town of this size was a weighty recognition.

Civitas ducalis: the name comes from Robert, Duke of Calabria

The place name is Latin and transparent: Civitas ducalis, the city of the duke. The duke in question was Robert of Anjou, Duke of Calabria, son of Charles II and heir to the throne, who would ascend the throne in 1309 as Robert the Wise and reign until 1343, protecting Petrarch and Boccaccio and making Naples one of the cultural capitals of Europe. The city thus carries in its name the dynastic dedication to the crown prince: Civitaducale, then Cittaducale. In the local dialect the name contracted to Cìeta, which for people arriving from outside is incomprehensible and for those born here is the only true name.

The castles that merged into the new city

The settlement happened through planned transfer. The inhabitants of the countryside were called inside the new walls, coming from Castel Sant'Angelo, from Paterno, from Canetra, from Calcaiola and from other minor villages of the valley. It's the mechanism historians call synoecism, the same one that formed the poleis in Greece: scattered settlements are dismantled and the population is reassembled in a single center. The result is that the neighborhoods of Cittaducale were born already divided by origin, and that original division has been handed down for centuries in neighborhood affiliations.

The grid layout of Cittaducale (RI)

Here is the reason it's worth climbing up here. The plan of Cittaducale is elliptical and regular, modeled on the scheme of the Roman castrum: two main streets perpendicular to each other, a cardo and a decumanus, that cross at the center creating the square, and around these axes a mesh of minor streets that cuts out rectangular blocks. A chessboard, precisely, inscribed in a defensive oval that follows the contour of the hill.

The cardo, the decumanus and the regular mesh

The major axis is today's Corso Mazzini, which crosses the town from gate to gate and opens into the central square. The transverse axis cuts the first at a right angle. Walking along the Corso, the view is like a perspective telescope: the street runs straight, the buildings line up, and at the end the bulk of the bell tower appears. In the side streets the fabric becomes finer, with row houses of two or three floors, bridging arches, short flights of steps that compensate for the slopes of the hill.

The difference from a village that grew spontaneously is immediate: there are no dead ends, no sudden curves, no irregular open spaces. Everything is orthogonal. Anyone who knows the French bastides of the 1200s and 1300s, or the Florentine new towns like San Giovanni Valdarno, recognizes the same logic: the city as an instrument for governing the territory, laid out before being inhabited.

The historic neighborhoods of Cittaducale

The regular mesh divided the center into four neighborhoods, each with its own church. Of those neighborhood churches only Santa Cecilia has survived. The others have disappeared or been transformed in the reorganizations that followed the earthquakes. The street names still preserve traces of that partition: the Palazzo della Comunità, for example, falls in the Santa Croce neighborhood. The town's historical reenactments are still organized on a neighborhood basis, which is the way a 1300s urban structure continues to produce identity seven centuries later.

The walls, the gates and the Angevin Tower

Of the city walls, substantial stretches remain along with several towers on a quadrangular plan, once crenellated and pierced by vertical and horizontal slits for the combined use of crossbows and, later, firearms. The showpiece is the Cassero di San Magno, better known as the Angevin Tower, which guards Porta Napoli, the main entrance on the southern side, the one that faced the Kingdom.

This tower deserves two minutes of close attention, because its plan is a small treatise on military architecture: it's horseshoe-shaped, that is rounded toward the outside and flat toward the inside of the city. The curve toward the outside is not decorative. A curved surface deflects battering-ram blows and stone cannonballs, while a corner takes them in and chips away. The flat side toward the inside, instead, allowed ladders and scaffolding to be leaned against it for the defenders' service. It's a solution found in the Angevin and Swabian fortifications of the South, and seeing it in a town of the Rieti area says more than any plaque about how deeply this territory was, for 600 years, a land of Abruzzo and Naples.

Piazza del Popolo, the center of the Cittaducale grid

At the crossing of the two axes opens Piazza del Popolo, which is at once the civic, religious and commercial center of the town. It isn't a monumental square in the Baroque sense of the term: it's a rectangular, well-proportioned space, overlooked by the cathedral, the Palazzo della Comunità with the Torre Civica, the Palazzo Maoli and the fountain. The perception of the space changes a lot with the light: in the morning the church front is in shadow and the square seems smaller, in the late afternoon the raking sun lights up the stone of the portals and the square widens.

Until the 1500s the square was even denser with institutions: in front of the Palazzo della Comunità stood the Palazzo del Capitano del Popolo and the Palazzo dei Priori, also known as Palazzo Malatesta, connected to each other by an arch that spanned the Corso. That arch no longer exists, but try to imagine it as you cross: the square was a sequence of thresholds and passages, not just an open space.

The cathedral of Santa Maria del Popolo in Cittaducale

The church of Santa Maria del Popolo was the cathedral of the diocese of Cittaducale, suppressed in 1818, and is still today the main monument of the town. The fabric is late: construction of the present building dates to the end of the 1400s, and the earthquakes of 1703 and 1898 required heavy reconstruction and restoration work that changed the original appearance.

The Abruzzo-Gothic facade and the rose window

The front is the most telling piece. It's a facade with a horizontal crown, with a central rose window and three portals: the scheme architectural historians call Abruzzo Gothic, and which is found at Collemaggio in L'Aquila, in Atri, in Sulmona. The horizontal crown, instead of a gabled one, hides the profile of the naves behind a flat wall screen, and produces that screen-wall effect that is the signature of the school. It's the most evident architectural clue that Cittaducale culturally looked toward L'Aquila and the Adriatic, not toward Rome.

The central rose window marks the facade at the top. In the central portal a fresco of the Madonna and Child is visible. Anyone who has seen the major Abruzzo facades will notice here a more sober and provincial version of the same language, which is precisely what makes it interesting: it shows how a prestigious model was reduced and adapted to the means of a smaller town.

The interior of the cathedral of Cittaducale

The interior has three naves, with the central nave covered by a coffered ceiling. The side altars are dedicated to the saints who matter in local devotion: San Magno, patron of the city, San Pietro, San Rocco, Sant'Emidio and Sant'Antonio Abate. The presence of Sant'Emidio is no accident in a seismic land: he is the saint invoked against earthquakes throughout the Ascoli and Rieti area, and his altar is almost always the sign of a community that has lived through a collapse.

Among the furnishings, the walnut choir and the fake tapestries with biblical scenes stand out, wall paintings that simulate hanging fabrics, a decorative device widespread between the 1600s and 1700s when real tapestries were out of reach for a provincial church. The Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament preserves a double dome with paintings inspired by the Old Testament.

The artworks of the cathedral of Santa Maria del Popolo

There is a polychrome statue of San Rocco from the 1500s, some 1600s canvases and a 1300s high relief with an Annunciation, which by date precedes the present church and probably comes from an earlier building or from another church of the town. In the apse a fresco depicting the Madonna del Popolo has been brought back to light, the titular image from which the church takes its name.

Among the paintings, a canvas of the Madonna of the Rosary is noted, attributed to a Sabine painter of the Troppa family. The spelling of the surname varies in the local sources, and it's best to read the caption on site. Girolamo Troppa, born in Rocchette in Sabina around 1636, was a Rome-trained painter very active in the churches of the Rieti area and the Sabina in the second half of the 1600s, and he is the name that recurs most often when a devotional canvas of good workmanship from that period turns up in this province.

The bell tower and the Bishop's Palace

Behind the church rises the bell tower, a sturdy structure on three levels, which from the square reads as the vertical counterpoint to the flat facade. At its side stands the Bishop's Palace, built in 1623 to a design by the architect Pietro Berrettini and characterized by a large episcopal hall completed in 1632. The hall preserves frescoes with the villas and hamlets assigned to the diocese, the coats of arms of the bishops and an old decorated fireplace: a cycle of painted ecclesiastical geography, the kind of apparatus a bishop had made to have before his eyes, literally, the extent of his jurisdiction.

The architect's name should be taken with the caution it deserves: Pietro Berrettini da Cortona, the great protagonist of Roman Baroque, was barely 25 in 1623 and was just starting his career in Rome. The attribution is the one reported by tradition and by local tourist sources. Where the design really is his, or that of a namesake, or of a workshop working from his drawing, is a question that would deserve an archive check. On this page it is referred to as the local sources refer to it.

The church of Sant'Agostino in Cittaducale and its frescoes

Also on Piazza del Popolo stands the church of Sant'Agostino, which dates to the 1400s and has a rare architectural feature: the entrance is not on the facade but on the side wall. The reason is simple and a little melancholy, namely that the facade was never finished. What was meant to be the main front remained rough masonry, and the church opened on its flank, toward the square, where people actually passed.

The portal of 1450 and the lunette by Lorenzo Torresani

The side portal bears the date 1450 and is the most notable sculpted piece in the town. In the lunette above it is painted a fresco signed by Lorenzo Torresani and dated 1548. Torresani belonged to a family of Veneto painters originally from Verona, active in the 1500s between the Veneto and central Italy: his presence in Cittaducale documents the circulation of outside workshops in a town that, under the Farnese and in the orbit of Margaret of Austria, was far less peripheral than its position suggests.

The advice is to look at the lunette in afternoon light: the fresco is outdoors, exposed, and with the sun head-on the surviving colors read much better than in shade. Bring light binoculars, or use your phone's zoom: the details are up high and with the naked eye you lose half of them.

The bell tower with mullioned windows at Sant'Agostino

Alongside the church is a bell tower with two levels of mullioned windows, which together with the cathedral tower and the Torre Civica makes up the trio of verticals on which the skyline of Cittaducale rests as seen from the plain. From afar, coming up from the Salaria, it's precisely these three elements that signal the town on the hill.

The Palazzo della Comunità and the Torre Civica of Cittaducale

On the square, across from the cathedral, stands the Palazzo della Comunità, historic seat of city government. The building underwent an important restoration that local tradition attributes to Jacopo Barozzi known as Vignola, the architect of Caprarola and the Gesù, very active in the service of the Farnese. The attribution should be taken for what it is, a consolidated tradition reported by local sources and heritage records: the link with the Farnese makes it plausible, but a precise documentary confirmation is not within the reach of a tourist guide.

Margaret of Austria in Cittaducale

The palace has a chapter of history worth more than many architectural descriptions. In the 1500s Emperor Charles V granted Cittaducale as a fief to his daughter Margaret of Austria, who had married Ottavio Farnese, Duke of Parma and Piacenza. Margaret, the emperor's natural daughter and later governor of the Netherlands, was one of the most powerful women of 16th-century Europe, and her Abruzzo fiefs were close to her heart: she spent long periods between L'Aquila, Ortona and Cittaducale.

In the halls of the Palazzo della Comunità, during her stays, comedies were staged, dances and masked feasts were held: receptions worthy of an imperial court in a border town. These are the years in which Cittaducale obtains the title of City and becomes the seat of a diocese under Pope Alexander VI Borgia, and in which the town is enriched with noble palaces. It is the high point of its arc.

The Torre Civica

The palace is flanked by the crenellated Torre Civica, which with its bell marked the rhythms of civic life: the opening and closing of the gates, the market, the assemblies, the alarm. The palace-and-tower pair facing the church-and-bell-tower pair is the physical representation of the balance between civil power and religious power that governed a medieval city, and in Cittaducale this dialectic can be read in a single frame, standing still in the middle of the square.

The other churches of Cittaducale (RI)

Besides the cathedral and Sant'Agostino, the municipal territory preserves a surprising number of sacred buildings, some inside the walls, others scattered in the hamlets and along the valley roads.

Santa Cecilia, the last neighborhood church

Santa Cecilia is the only survivor among the churches that characterized the four old neighborhoods of the city. Its survival is, in itself, a document: it allows you to grasp the scale of those buildings, which were not monumental churches but neighborhood outposts, one for each of the four portions into which the grid divided the community.

Church and monastery of Santa Caterina d'Alessandria

The monastic complex of Santa Caterina d'Alessandria is the most intact place in Cittaducale. The foundation dates to the years immediately after the birth of the city, in 1327, and according to the Touring Club Italiano entry the monastery was founded by Friar Gentile da Foligno, of the Order of the Hermits of Saint Augustine. Today it is inhabited by a community of Benedictine nuns who follow the rule of Saint Benedict of Norcia, and it includes the church, the choir, the museum, the library, the refectory, the cells, the vegetable garden, the tailor's shop and the oven: a complete monastic organism, still functioning.

The 1500s cloister has a rectangular plan, with arches on round columns with a simple capital on both levels. The library preserves several thousand volumes, including five rare 1500s editions, 90 parchment documents covering the 13th to the 19th century and a substantial 1600s and 1700s collection. For anyone who works on local history it's a goldmine. For the ordinary visitor it's the sign that here continuity was never broken.

The Benedictine Museum of Santa Caterina d'Alessandria

The museum displays liturgical objects, chalices, monstrances, candlesticks and reliquaries, as well as paintings of religious subjects. The liturgical vestments are kept in two cabinets in the chapter room. The address is Piazza Marchesi 9, telephone 0746 602106. The museum has an agreement with the Touring Club Italiano, which grants reduced admission to cardholders. Since it is a museum inside a cloistered monastery, visits are arranged by appointment: call ahead, always, and don't take for granted that it's open on holidays.

Santa Maria di Sesto, in umbilico Italiae

Near the railway station stands the church of Santa Maria di Sesto, Romanesque in layout, which carries the epithet in umbilico Italiae, in the navel of Italy. In 1620 the bishop of Cittaducale, Monsignor Pietro Paolo Quintavalle, had a plaque placed there guaranteeing indulgence to those who visited the church on Sundays or on other holidays. The formula of the navel of Italy is not a modern parochial pride: it goes back to Marcus Terentius Varro, who in the 1st century BC identified this area as Umbilicus Italiae, the religious and symbolic fulcrum of a great number of Italic peoples. The 1600s bishop, by carving that formula, was claiming an ancient primacy.

The sanctuary of Santa Maria delle Grazie

On the road that descends toward Rieti stands the sanctuary of Santa Maria delle Grazie, a destination of local devotion. It's the kind of building you meet at the exit of towns along transit routes: chapels and sanctuaries built where the traveler looked out over the valley and commended himself for the journey.

San Vittorino, the church that sank

This is the most singular story of the territory. The church of San Vittorino, near the hamlet of Cotilia along Via Salaria, was finished in 1613 and sank almost immediately because of the karst phenomena that characterize the whole Piana di San Vittorino. Notable remains of the building survive: a spring wells up directly from the floor of the church and feeds a stream that exits from the remains of the portal. A church that drinks itself, literally. The phenomenon is not an isolated accident: the whole plain is dotted with sinkholes, karst collapses linked to the rise of aggressive sulfurous waters that dissolve the limestone from below. The lake of Paterno, a little farther on, is exactly the same thing, only on a much larger scale.

The noble palaces of Cittaducale

The Farnese 1500s and the 1600s left in town a series of noble residences that give the Corso and the adjacent streets a decorum unexpected for a town of this size. You'll come across the Palazzo Caroselli, today the seat of the Comune, the Palazzo Dragonetti-De Torres and the Palazzo Maoli, both of Baroque taste, the Palazzo Valentini-Cherubini, the Palazzo Bonafaccia and the Palazzo Vetoli.

Don't expect facades of Roman grandeur: here the nobility was local, the portals are in gray stone, the cornices sober, the courtyards small. But the whole makes a system, and walking along Corso Mazzini you understand that this was a city with a stable ruling class, not a village. A detail to look for: the coats of arms on the portals and the dates carved into the lintels, which let you date by eye the phases of renewal of the street front.

The Terme di Cotilia and the Ancient Baths of Vespasian

West of Cittaducale, in the Piana di San Vittorino, lies one of the most important Roman thermal complexes of central Italy, together with the springs that fed it. The ancient place name is Aquae Cutiliae, and the rank of its visitors was imperial.

Aquae Cutiliae in the ancient sources

The waters of Cotilia are cited by Varro, Livy, Virgil and Seneca: a literary pedigree few spa towns can claim. The reason for the fame was not only therapeutic but also religious, because this basin was considered a sacred place by the Sabine and Italic peoples. Vespasian, who came from the Rieti area, and his son Titus stayed here repeatedly, and it was right here that both died: Vespasian in 79 AD, Titus in 81. Two Roman emperors dying in the same place, two years apart, is a record that no other Italian locality can claim.

The archaeological area of the Ancient Baths of Vespasian

The archaeological complex develops over four successive terraces starting from the road that follows the line of the Roman Via Salaria. The main evidence comes from the second terrace, excavated and restored between 1969 and 1986. At the center you can recognize a large pool of about 60 by 24 meters, very probably the natatio, reached by steep little stairways placed symmetrically on the long sides. The pool shows a thick limestone deposit, the unmistakable sign of the mineral waters that fed it.

The northern facade measures 76.9 meters and is marked by alternating rectangular and semicircular niches. The adjacent buildings preserve walls standing up to five meters high. The excavations have yielded mosaic pavements, painted plaster and marble cornices. The construction is dated between the second half of the 2nd century BC and the first half of the 1st century BC, and the complex remained in use at least until the 4th century AD, with visitors attested until the 12th century. 1,400 years of continuous use: very few Roman monuments can say the same.

The Cotilia spa today

Thermal activity resumed in the modern era. In the 1930s a new complex was built, expanded starting in the 1970s. The current spa has three springs, the Fonte del Chiosco at 14.5 degrees, the Nuovi Bagni and the Vecchi Bagni at 15 degrees, all with waters of bicarbonate-sulfate-alkaline-earth composition, inside a park. Beware of a frequent misunderstanding: the village of Cotilia and the spa lie right next to the border with Castel Sant'Angelo, while the archaeological area of the ancient baths stands on the territory of Cittaducale. For hours, treatments and rates, the reference is the spa's website, which should be consulted before showing up.

Lake Paterno and the navel of Italy

A few minutes from the baths, in the same plain, opens Lake Paterno. Its dimensions are deceiving: it's an oval basin of about 150 by 190 meters, a diameter of around 204 meters, but the depth reaches almost 54 meters. It's a well, not a lowland lake.

A lake that is a collapse

The origin is karst: the lake formed through the sinking of the ground, a sinkhole. The date of the collapse is unknown, certainly very ancient. The mechanism is the one that governs the whole Piana di San Vittorino, where deep sulfurous waters corrode the limestone until the vault gives way. Looking at the lake with this key, the church of San Vittorino sinking in the 1600s stops being an anecdote and becomes an episode in a geological process that is still active.

The floating island the Romans talked about

The Latin authors reported that in the middle of the lake stood a floating island, covered with thick vegetation, which moved frequently. Seneca maintained that it was formed by accumulations of branches and earth held up by the density of the lake water. The island was still visible at the beginning of the 1800s. Today it is gone. If the phenomenon seems incredible to you, know that floating islands of peat and vegetation are documented in other European bodies of water: the ancient description, for once, has solid physical grounds.

Umbilicus Italiae

It was Varro who defined this place as Umbilicus Italiae, to underline how it was the religious and symbolic fulcrum of many Italic peoples. In the Renaissance other towns appropriated the epithet, which has become the object of parochial claims in half of Italy. The oldest source, however, points to this basin. The lake is suitable for swimming and popular in summer, and it's worth getting there early in the morning, when the water is still and the wall of Monte Nuria is reflected in it.

The Carabinieri Forestry School in Cittaducale (RI)

Anyone who arrives in town and sees young people in uniform along the Corso understands that Cittaducale doesn't live only on memories. The Carabinieri Forestry School is based here, the main national facility for training forestry personnel, and it's a presence that shapes the economy, the demographics and even the atmosphere of the historic center.

From the 1903 practical School of Silviculture to the Forestry Carabinieri

The activities of the practical School of Silviculture for the Forest Guards of the Kingdom began in November 1903, while the founding decree dates to 1905. Since then the name has changed following the transformations of the State's forestry apparatus, up to the absorption of the State Forestry Corps into the Carabinieri in 2017. Today the school trains sergeants and carabinieri with initial specialization courses, holds specialist refresher courses on forestry, environmental and agri-food subjects, and runs environmental education programs for schools. In 2025 the school celebrated 120 years since its establishment.

The teaching arboretum

The site occupies about 40,000 square meters and integrates historic buildings of conventual origin, dating to the 14th century, with modern construction. Half of the surface is taken up by the historic Arboretum, which counts more than 900 specimens belonging to over 100 different species of trees and shrubs. For anyone interested in botany it's a notable heritage: a teaching arboretum built over more than a century, with successive plantings that document the fashions and priorities of Italian forestry from the early 1900s to today.

The museum of the Forestry School

Inside the school is a natural history exhibition that holds hundreds of taxidermied specimens, mammals and birds, a xylotheque, that is a collection of woods, and natural history dioramas. Over time the collection has also grown with finds from seizures made under CITES control of international trade in protected species. The facility also preserves relics, weapons, uniforms and the flag of the State Forestry Corps. Visits are subject to the access rules of a military facility: they are arranged with the school and not improvised. For the historical context of the Carabinieri, it's worth comparing this heritage with that of the Historical Museum of the Carabinieri in Rome.

The Peschiera aqueduct: Rome's water is born in Cittaducale

This is the distinction the locals cite first, and they are right. Within the municipal territory, toward the border with Castel Sant'Angelo, gush the Peschiera springs, second in Italy by flow. Part of the water flows into the Velino river. Another part enters the Peschiera aqueduct, a hydraulic engineering work that carries it for about 90 kilometers to Rome.

The figures give an idea of what this means: the intake works managed by ACEA supply over 70 percent of the water needed by the capital. When a faucet is opened in Rome, the water that comes out has almost certainly begun its journey here, in this valley. The aqueduct was built starting in the 1930s and represents the modern continuation of a tradition that goes back to the ancient aqueducts: Rome has always had to go far to find water, and for a century it has been looking for it in the Rieti area.

The fact also has a local political side, and it's right to say so: a community of 6,000 inhabitants that supplies water to almost 3 million people has, historically, claimed compensation and attention. The topic returns every time the doubling of the pipelines or extraordinary maintenance is discussed.

The Laghi Lungo and Ripasottile Reserve, a stone's throw from Cittaducale

A little beyond Rieti, on the other side of the basin, stretches the Laghi Lungo and Ripasottile Reserve, established by regional law of June 17, 1985, number 94. The protected area is 3,278 hectares and includes the territories of Cantalice, Colli sul Velino, Contigliano, Poggio Bustone, Rieti and Rivodutri. Management is entrusted to the consortium of those municipalities, based in Rieti at Via Cintia 87, telephone 0746 200999.

The two bodies of water are the remnants of the ancient Lacus Velinus, the great lake that occupied the Rieti basin before the Romans drained it by cutting the Velino at Marmore in 271 BC, under the consul Manius Curius Dentatus. The plain you cross by car today coming from Cittaducale is, in essence, the bed of that lake.

For the visitor the reserve is worth it above all for birdwatching, particularly in the winter months and during migration periods. Many species nest in the reedbeds. In the waters you find rudd, pike, tench, eels, chub and trout. Among amphibians there are tree frogs, agile frogs, fire-bellied toads and newts. Among reptiles the grass snake is common. Among mammals there are foxes, hedgehogs and the nutria, which is an alien and invasive species. The vegetation alternates marsh reedbeds, white and yellow water lilies, willows, elders and poplars in riparian formations. Bring binoculars and boots, and go at dawn: by mid-morning bird activity drops drastically.

Cittaducale (RI) before Cittaducale: protohistory and archaeology

The middle Velino valley was inhabited long before 1308. Livy calls the original peoples Aborigines and Pelasgians, and ancient tradition attributes to them the founding of legendary cities, among them Cotilia and Vatia, located respectively east and west of the present town.

Vatia and the hamlet of Santa Rufina

In the municipal territory, in the hamlet of Santa Rufina, stood ancient Vatia, a city of the Aborigines that Dionysius of Halicarnassus places a few kilometers east of Rieti, along Via Calatina. Ancient sources must be handled with caution: Dionysius wrote in the Augustan age, centuries after the events, and his catalog of Aboriginal cities mixes tradition, etymology and erudite reconstruction. It is precious historiographic material, not an excavation report.

The Valle Ottara site

A second protohistoric site has been identified at Valle Ottara, on the slopes of Colle Petescia: a settlement of the middle Bronze Age, datable between the 13th and 12th century BC. Pieces of baked clay with branch impressions have been found, linked to remains of huts, that is the wattle plaster that covered the wooden walls and that survived because it was baked by the fire of the structure. The bones of sus domesticus and of ovis attest to the presence of livestock: pigs and sheep, the basic economy of an Apennine village of the Bronze Age.

An interpretive hypothesis, reported in the local literature, is that by the name Vatia Dionysius meant the whole area occupied by the two protohistoric sites in the municipal territory: one chosen for stable settlement, at Valle Ottara, the other used as a place of worship, at Santa Rufina. The distinction between settlement and sanctuary is a recurring model in pre-Roman Italy and holds up well against the facts.

The rock paintings of Grotti

In the hamlet of Grotti, some caves near the Monti dei Balzi preserve traces of prehistoric anthropomorphic paintings. It's a fragile and little-publicized heritage: anyone wanting to look for it should ask at the Comune and move with the respect that such a site demands.

The geology of the Cupaello mineral

One last curiosity for enthusiasts: in the hamlet of Cupaello significant minerals have been found, linked to the carbonatitic volcanism of the area. The Rieti area is one of the few Italian regions where rocks of this type outcrop, and some localities of the municipality are cited in the international mineralogical literature.

From the Middle Ages to Unification: six centuries of Abruzzo

One of the aspects that most throws visitors to Cittaducale is discovering that this Lazio town was Abruzzese for over 600 years. From 1308 to 1927 it was part of the Kingdom of Naples and then of the Two Sicilies, administratively placed in the province of Abruzzo Ulteriore Secondo, with L'Aquila as its capital.

Aragonese, Farnese and Bourbons

Passed from the Angevins to the Aragonese, Cittaducale obtained from the latter the privilege of minting coins and proved so loyal to the crown that it fought continuous struggles against Rieti in defense of the Kingdom of Naples. In the 16th century it obtained the title of City and became the seat of a diocese under Pope Alexander VI Borgia. It was then given as a fief by Charles V to his daughter Margaret of Austria, wife of Ottavio Farnese. Also in the 1500s, struggles for power developed inside the walls between the Pandolfi and Mancini families, city feuds that followed the classic script of the Italian communes, with exiles, ambushes and reconciliations imposed from above.

After Farnese rule the town returned to the direct dependence of the Bourbons of Naples, remaining there until 1861. From 1806 it was the capital of a District and then of a Circondario: an administrative seat with a court, offices, notaries and a small stable bureaucracy, which explains the tenor of the palaces and the number of notable families.

The customs house of Santa Rufina

A frontier land, Cittaducale hosted an important customs house near the hamlet of Santa Rufina, where the old State border ran. That line outlasted the end of the Kingdom: until 1927 it remained the provincial border between Abruzzo and Umbria. Today it is a cadastral detail, but for centuries it was a real barrier, with checks, duties and smuggling.

The move to Lazio in 1927

In 1927 the Italian government reorganized the provincial districts and established the province of Rieti. Cittaducale, with the whole territory of its former circondario, passed from the province of L'Aquila degli Abruzzi to the newly born province of Rieti. It was a clean change of affiliation, decided on paper, which in one generation realigned the town toward Rome. In speech, in cooking and in certain devotions, however, Abruzzo never fully left.

The 1703 and 1898 earthquakes in Cittaducale

A large part of the most significant buildings of Cittaducale, built in the medieval period, today look different from the original because of the reconstructions made necessary by two earthquakes. The first is the one of 1703, the sequence that devastated the central Apennines between Norcia, L'Aquila and the Aterno valley, one of the most destructive events in Italian seismic history. The second is the earthquake of 1898, of lesser magnitude but centered right in the Rieti area.

The result is a historic center where the 1300s urban layout is intact and the architecture is in large part 1700s and 1800s. It's a frequent condition in the central Apennines, and you have to know how to read it: the walls, the gates and the street grid tell the 1300s, the standing structures tell the reconstructions. Anyone looking for medieval authenticity in the plaster will come away empty-handed. Anyone looking for it in the design of the city will find it all.

A curiosity about Cittaducale (RI)

The real curiosity of Cittaducale is not in the churches: it's in the plan of a tower. The Cassero di San Magno, the Angevin Tower that guards Porta Napoli, has a horseshoe plan, rounded toward the countryside and flat toward the city. It's a detail that 99 percent of visitors look at without seeing, and which instead contains the reason for the existence of the whole town.

The curve toward the outside is a ballistic choice. A tower with a sharp corner offers besiegers a point on which to concentrate their blows: the corner is undermined, the structure is brought down, the breach is opened. A curved tower, instead, deflects the energy of the impact along the surface and offers no purchase to the pickaxe. The flat inner side served quite another purpose: it allowed ladders, walkways and storerooms to be built against it, and the patrol walk to be connected without wasting space. Designing a tower like this means having a real war in mind, not a parade.

And here comes the interesting point. Cittaducale was founded in 1308 as an outpost of the Kingdom of Naples against the Papal States, at a time when the Church was about to move to Avignon and the papacy was going through its deepest crisis. The Angevins, who were the armed wing of the papacy in Italy, were building defenses against their own ally: because 1300s geopolitics was fluid, and a prudent king fortified himself even against his friends. The shape of that tower, in essence, is the photograph of an institutional distrust.

A second curiosity, less technical and more affectionate: the dialect name of the town is Cìeta. From Civitas ducalis to Cìeta: seven centuries of phonetic erosion in two syllables. If in a bar on the Corso you hear that name pronounced, you have just heard the same word the Angevin settlers said, worn down by use like a stone step.

Something nobody tells you about Cittaducale (RI)

No guide writes it, but it's the key to understanding where you are: Cittaducale has not belonged to Lazio for even a century. It became part of Lazio in 1927, by decree, along with its whole circondario. Before that it was Abruzzo, province of L'Aquila, and it had been so without interruption since 1308, that is from the very day of the founding. 619 years of Abruzzo against fewer than 100 of Lazio.

This explains a number of things that otherwise seem incongruous. It explains why the cathedral facade is Abruzzo-Gothic, with the horizontal crown and the rose window, instead of following Roman or Umbrian models. It explains why the local cooking resembles that of the L'Aquila area more than that of the Sabina. It explains why the venerated saints are those of the Adriatic side, Sant'Emidio first among them. It explains why until 1927 the provincial border between Abruzzo and Umbria passed at Santa Rufina, inside the municipal territory, complete with a customs house: that was a State frontier, not an administrative technicality.

The second thing nobody says concerns water. Cittaducale is Rome's faucet. The Peschiera springs, second in Italy by flow, gush within the municipal territory, and the aqueduct that starts from them supplies over 70 percent of the capital's water needs. No sign points it out to tourists, no itinerary tells it. And yet every time 3 million Romans turn on a faucet, the gesture begins here.

Third little-known thing, and this one is practical: the railway station is not in town. Anyone who books a hotel by looking at the map and plans to arrive by train discovers that between the platform and the historic center there are kilometers and a serious difference in elevation, in a hamlet on the plain. It's not an insurmountable problem, but you need to know it beforehand, not after getting off with your suitcases.

The advice I give you for visiting Cittaducale (RI)

The main advice is only one: don't come to Cittaducale as an isolated stop. Come to Cittaducale as a base for the Piana di San Vittorino. A town of 6,000 inhabitants with a historic center that you walk around in 90 minutes doesn't justify, by itself, a trip from Rome. It fully justifies it if you fit it into a well-built day.

The day I recommend, tried and tested: leave Rome around eight, arrive around half past nine. First stop at the archaeological area of the Ancient Baths of Vespasian, with the morning light cutting across the terraces. Then Lake Paterno, 10 minutes by car, when the water is still motionless. At noon you go up to the historic center of Cittaducale and do the loop: Porta Napoli, the Angevin Tower, Corso Mazzini, Piazza del Popolo, the cathedral, Sant'Agostino, the Palazzo della Comunità. Lunch in town. In the afternoon, your choice of the monastery of Santa Caterina (calling ahead) or the Laghi Lungo and Ripasottile Reserve on the other side of the basin. Return to Rome via the Salaria.

Second advice, contrarian compared with what you'll read elsewhere: skip the summer. July and August in this basin are muggy, the overhead sun flattens the gray stone and the churches close in the middle hours. The right moment for Cittaducale is the second half of October, when the Terminillo woods turn and the low light models the cathedral facade, or April and May, when the plain is green and Lake Paterno is not yet crowded with swimmers.

Third advice, the most important and the most neglected: call ahead. The cathedral, Sant'Agostino and above all the monastery of Santa Caterina don't have museum hours. The number of the Comune is 0746 60801, the one for the Benedictine museum 0746 602106. Five minutes on the phone save you a wasted trip. Arriving here on a Sunday afternoon often means finding everything closed: it's a bad experience, and completely avoidable.

Fourth: bring shoes with a decent sole. The paving of the historic center is stone worn smooth by use, and in the rain it becomes seriously slippery, especially on the ramps that go down toward the gates.

Another well-known fact, yet rarely cited

That the waters of Cotilia were famous in antiquity is said by every guide. What almost nobody develops is the consequence: in this plain two Roman emperors died, father and son, two years apart. Vespasian in 79 AD, Titus in 81. No other Italian locality, Rome excluded, can say the same.

Vespasian was from a Rieti family, and returned to the Aquae Cutiliae every summer. Tradition has it that he followed an intensive hydropinic cure there, drinking large quantities of cold water: a regimen that in a 69-year-old man, struck by an intestinal fever, was probably not helpful. Suetonius relates that the emperor, feeling himself dying, wanted to stand up, saying that an emperor must die on his feet: the anecdote is famous and should be taken for what it is, an anecdote of ancient tradition, not a transcript.

Titus died in the same place two years later, at 42, after a very brief reign marked by the eruption of Vesuvius, the fire of Rome and the inauguration of the Colosseum. That the two Flavians ended their story here gives this basin, for those who arrive knowing it, a depth the landscape alone does not convey. Walking among the terraces of the baths, what you tread on is the vacation spot of an imperial dynasty.

Second fact, well known but little explored: the battle of Rieti-Antrodoco of March 7, 1821, fought a few kilometers from here, is considered the first battle of the Risorgimento. It is talked about as a footnote, when it was the clash that closed the Neapolitan constitutional experience of 1820 and opened the decade of reaction. The Neapolitan troops were commanded by Guglielmo Pepe. The Austrians were commanded by General Frimont, who for that victory was created Prince of Antrodoco by the king. An Italian noble title born from an Italian defeat: it's a detail that says a lot about Italy in 1821.

The right photo to take in Cittaducale (RI)

The photograph that brings Cittaducale home is not the close-up of the cathedral. It's the view down Corso Mazzini, shot from the end of the street with the bell tower on axis. Stand at the end of the Corso, at the gate, crouch down a hand's breadth below your natural position and frame vertically: the straight street, the building fronts converging, the tower closing the perspective. That photo tells you in one stroke that this is a designed city, not a grown one.

The right time is late afternoon, when the sun enters the axis of the street and lights it along its whole length, or early on a winter morning, when the mist of the plain rises and softens the background. Avoid noon: the overhead light flattens the volumes and the gray stone goes flat.

The second photo to take is the Angevin Tower from below, outside the walls, including the curve of the masonry against the sky. Get as close as 3 or 4 meters and use a moderate wide-angle: the horseshoe plan can only be read this way, in foreshortening. From afar it looks like any tower.

The third, if you have a bit of patience, is the overall panorama of the village on the hill, shot from the plain. The best spot is along the secondary roads that run in the valley floor south of the town, where you can hold together the compact silhouette of the historic center and, in the background, the profile of Terminillo. In autumn, with the colors of the woods, it's the most beautiful image Cittaducale can give.

A common-sense recommendation: in the area of the Forestry School you don't photograph freely. It's a military facility, its rules apply, and clowning around with your phone in front of a guarded entrance is the quickest way to ruin your day.

Some important events that happened here in history

The first event is the founding itself, in 1308. It's not a symbolic event: it's an act of government that physically moves hundreds of people. The inhabitants of Castel Sant'Angelo, Paterno, Canetra, Calcaiola and other villages were called inside the new walls, and their original settlements emptied out. A city born by decree and a landscape that changes in a few years: it's one of the best readable cases of medieval territorial planning in central Italy.

The second is the conferral of the title of City and the establishment of the diocese in the 1500s, under Pope Alexander VI Borgia. With the diocese came the bishop, the chapter, the seminary, the offices: a superstructure that in a town of this size means jobs, construction, written culture. The Bishop's Palace of 1623 with its frescoed hall is the ripe fruit of that season. The diocese was suppressed in 1818, and with it went part of the town's role.

The third is the fief of Margaret of Austria. Natural daughter of Charles V, wife of Ottavio Farnese, governor of the Netherlands, Margaret received Cittaducale among her Abruzzo possessions. Her stays turned the Palazzo della Comunità into a small court: comedies, dances, masked feasts. For a few decades a border town hosted the manners of the highest European aristocracy.

The fourth is the earthquake of 1703, which devastated the central Apennines and forced a radical reconstruction on Cittaducale. The fifth is the earthquake of 1898, centered in the Rieti area, which forced new interventions. Between the two quakes the transformation of the town's built appearance takes place: what you see today is the result of two reconstructions laid over the 1300s layout.

The sixth is the battle of Rieti-Antrodoco of March 7, 1821, remembered as the first battle of the Risorgimento, fought right next to this territory between the Neapolitan troops of Guglielmo Pepe and the Austrians of General Frimont. The Neapolitan defeat closed the brief constitutional season of the Kingdom.

The seventh is 1927, the year in which the reorganization of the provincial districts detached Cittaducale from L'Aquila and from Abruzzo and assigned it to the newly born province of Rieti. The town changed region without moving a meter.

The eighth is September 6 and 7, 2008, when Cittaducale celebrated 700 years since its founding with a large historical reenactment. It's not a feat of arms, but it's the moment when a community publicly decided that its own date of birth still matters.

The ninth, and it concerns the present, is the absorption of the State Forestry Corps into the Carabinieri in 2017, which turned the Cittaducale school into the Carabinieri Forestry School. For a town that has hosted that facility since 1903, it was a reform with very concrete consequences.

Who has passed through Cittaducale (RI)

The first name is the one carved into the place name: Robert of Anjou, Duke of Calabria when the city was founded in 1308 and King of Naples from 1309 to 1343. Robert the Wise was one of the most cultured sovereigns of the 1300s in Europe, patron of Petrarch, who in 1341 chose him as examiner before the poetic coronation on the Capitoline Hill, and correspondent of Boccaccio. That his ducal title remained carved in the name of a town in the Rieti area is the most lasting trace of his passage through this valley. His father, Charles II of Anjou, is the material founder of the city.

The second name is Margaret of Austria, called Madama, natural daughter of Emperor Charles V, wife in second marriage of Ottavio Farnese and later governor of the Netherlands. She received Cittaducale as a fief from her father and stayed here, holding court in the Palazzo della Comunità. Hers is a documented presence, remembered with pride by local tradition: one of the most powerful women of the 1500s spending her days in a border town of Abruzzo Ulteriore.

The third name is Jacopo Barozzi known as Vignola, to whom local tradition attributes the restoration of the Palazzo della Comunità. The architect of the Farnese, author of the Palazzo di Caprarola and of the church of the Gesù in Rome, worked long for that family, and the link with Margaret's fief makes the attribution plausible. It remains, however, an attribution of tradition, not a verified archive fact.

The fourth is Lorenzo Torresani, a painter of a Veronese family active in the 1500s, who in 1548 signed the fresco in the lunette of the portal of Sant'Agostino: a presence documented by the date and the signature on the work itself, the kind of proof worth more than 10 pages of chronicle.

The fifth is Pietro Berrettini, to whom local sources attribute the design of the Bishop's Palace of 1623. If this is the Pietro da Cortona who shortly afterward would paint the ceiling of Palazzo Barberini, the episode would be of great interest for his early formation. The attribution, however, must be treated with caution.

The sixth is Girolamo Troppa, a Sabine painter of the second half of the 1600s, born in Rocchette and trained in Rome, to whom a Marian canvas kept in the cathedral is attributed. Troppa worked a great deal in the churches of the Rieti area and the Sabina, and his hand is one of the threads that tie together the parishes of this province.

The seventh name is not an artist but a soldier: Guglielmo Pepe, Neapolitan general and patriot, who in March 1821 led the constitutional troops of the Kingdom into this valley against the Austrians of General Frimont, and was defeated here. Pepe would later be among the defenders of Venice in 1849: a biography that crosses the whole Risorgimento and that in this basin has one of its opening chapters.

The eighth, finally, are the thousands of young people who since 1903 have passed through the forestry school: guards of the Kingdom first, agents and officers of the State Forestry Corps later, forestry carabinieri today. They have no entries in the encyclopedias, but they have left on this town a deeper mark than many illustrious names.

What to eat in Cittaducale (RI)

The cooking here is Apennine and straightforward, with a clear Abruzzo imprint deposited by the six centuries of the Kingdom. The dishes you meet most often in the trattorias of the town and surroundings are sagne alla molinara, a fresh pasta cut in irregular strips, gnocchi with lamb sauce, beans with pork rind and pasta with chicken giblets, that is with offal, a dish of recovery that became a specialty.

In autumn the chestnut enters the menu, as in the whole foothill belt of Terminillo. The real protagonist of the Rieti area remains, however, the legume: beans, lentils, grass peas, grown in the valley floors and in the high basins. Anyone arriving from Rome expecting carbonara would do well to change plans and order what the place knows how to make.

A practical note: in a town of 6,000 inhabitants the restaurants are few and many close on Sunday evening. If you plan a dinner, book. And keep in mind that some of the best tables in the area are in the hamlets and along the Salaria, not inside the walls.

What to see around Cittaducale (RI)

The position of Cittaducale is its best ace. Within half an hour by car there is a concentration of landscapes and monuments that few Lazio bases can offer.

Rieti and the Valle Santa

10 kilometers away is Rieti, with its medieval historic center, the walls, the Roman bridge and the underground passages of the bishop's palace. Around the basin are arranged the Franciscan sanctuaries of the Valle Santa: the sanctuary of Greccio, where in 1223 Francis set up the first nativity scene, and the sanctuary of Fonte Colombo, where the Rule was dictated. They are barely half an hour away.

The Velino valley toward L'Aquila

Going up the Salaria toward the east you come to Borgo Velino and Antrodoco, with its church of Santa Maria extra moenia and the spectacular gorges that open toward the L'Aquila area. Just before, the village of Castel Sant'Angelo, on which the Cotilia spa leans. Continuing you reach L'Aquila, which shared with Cittaducale 600 years of province.

The mountain: Terminillo and Leonessa

To the north, Terminillo offers skiing in winter and hiking in summer, with its summit at 2,217 meters. Past the pass you descend to Leonessa, another Angevin founded city with a regular layout and a historic center of notable quality: the comparison between the two urban plans is a lesson in medieval urbanism worth the trip.

The lakes and the reserves

On the opposite side of the basin stretches the Laghi Lungo and Ripasottile Reserve. Farther south, in the Cicolano, Lake Salto and Lake Turano are two artificial reservoirs built in the 1930s, whose waters feed the Cotilia hydroelectric plant, in the territory of Cittaducale. They are the most scenic lake landscapes of inner Lazio.

Cittaducale (RI) with children and accessibility

The historic center is family-sized: it's small, enclosed, with little traffic, and children can walk without the worry of busy streets. The walls, the gates and the tower work well as a story, and the idea of the city built with a ruler in 1308 can be explained to an 8-year-old in three minutes, by pointing at the straight street and the four neighborhoods. Lake Paterno and the thermal area add the outdoor part.

On accessibility the truth has to be told: a medieval village on a hill, with stone paving and a few ramps, is not easy terrain for a wheelchair or for people who have difficulty walking. Piazza del Popolo and the central stretch of the Corso are relatively flat and passable. The connections toward the gates and the side streets involve slopes and uneven surfaces. Anyone with specific needs would do well to contact the Comune before the visit to check routes and reserved parking.

When to go to Cittaducale (RI)

Autumn is the best season, no argument. Between the end of September and the first half of November the light is low and warm, the Terminillo woods change color, the plain fills with morning mists that make the village float on the hill, and the temperature is ideal for walking. Spring is the second choice, with the plain green and the lakes full.

Summer is the busiest season, because Lake Paterno attracts swimmers and the baths are working, but in the middle hours the heat in this basin is heavy and visiting the historic center becomes tiring. If you come in summer, organize yourself the way people organize here: out early in the morning, long break at lunch, out again after 17:00.

Winter has its charm, but it must be approached sensibly. We are at over 500 meters of elevation, in climate zone E, with 2,240 degree days: it means real cold, night frosts and the possibility of snow. On the other hand, you can combine the visit with a day on the Terminillo slopes, and the deserted village under a clear sky is an image that pays you back for the cold in your fingers.

Quick questions about Cittaducale (RI)

Where is Cittaducale (RI)?

On the Colle di Cerreto Piano, along Via Salaria, in the western part of the Piana di San Vittorino, in the province of Rieti, 10 kilometers from the provincial capital and a little under 90 from Rome.

How far is Cittaducale from Rome?

About 85-90 kilometers along the Salaria, which in normal conditions means between an hour and 20 minutes and an hour and 40 minutes by car. On summer Sunday returns the time can increase noticeably.

How long does it take to visit Cittaducale?

The historic center takes an hour and a half at a relaxed pace. For a visit that also includes the Ancient Baths of Vespasian, Lake Paterno and a lunch stop, plan on a whole day.

Do you pay a ticket to enter Cittaducale?

No. The historic center is a lived-in town, access is free and open. Any tickets only concern individual museums or organized guided visits.

Why is it called Cittaducale?

From the Latin Civitas ducalis, the city of the duke, in honor of Robert of Anjou, Duke of Calabria, son of the founder Charles II and heir to the throne of Naples. In the local dialect the name became Cìeta.

Who founded Cittaducale and when?

It was founded in 1308 by King Charles II of Anjou as a northern border stronghold of the Kingdom of Naples, facing the Papal States.

Is Cittaducale in Abruzzo or in Lazio?

Today it is in Lazio, province of Rieti. But it has been only since 1927: for over six centuries, from the founding until that year, it belonged to Abruzzo and to the province of L'Aquila.

What to see in Cittaducale in half a day?

Porta Napoli with the Angevin Tower, Corso Mazzini, Piazza del Popolo, the cathedral of Santa Maria del Popolo, the church of Sant'Agostino with the 1450 portal, the Palazzo della Comunità with the Torre Civica and, if open, the monastery of Santa Caterina d'Alessandria.

Is the cathedral of Cittaducale always open?

No, it follows parish hours, which vary through the year. It's best to call ahead before planning the visit.

How do you visit the Benedictine Museum of Santa Caterina d'Alessandria?

The museum is at Piazza Marchesi 9 and the visit is arranged by calling 0746 602106. Being in a monastery, the hours depend on the community. The museum has an agreement with the Touring Club Italiano.

Can you visit the Carabinieri Forestry School?

The school hosts a natural history museum and a historic arboretum, but it is a military facility: access must be requested and arranged in advance, and is not guaranteed. You don't show up at the gate hoping to get in.

Where are the Terme di Cotilia and which are the Baths of Vespasian?

The modern Cotilia spa is in the plain, right next to the border with Castel Sant'Angelo. The so-called Baths of Vespasian are instead the Roman archaeological area, in the territory of Cittaducale, with the large pool and the terraces.

Can you swim in Lake Paterno?

The lake is suitable for swimming and is popular in summer. Keep in mind that it's a karst basin almost 54 meters deep, with cold water and banks that drop steeply: it's not a swimming pool, and should be approached with the caution it deserves.

Why is Lake Paterno called the navel of Italy?

The epithet Umbilicus Italiae goes back to Marcus Terentius Varro, who identified this basin as the religious and symbolic fulcrum of many Italic peoples. In the 1600s Bishop Quintavalle had the formula carved also in the church of Santa Maria di Sesto.

Is it true that Rome's water comes from Cittaducale?

For the most part, yes. The Peschiera springs, in the municipal territory, are second in Italy by flow, and the aqueduct that starts from them runs about 90 kilometers to the capital, supplying over 70 percent of its needs.

Is Cittaducale good for children?

Yes. The center is small, with little traffic and easy to tell as a story, and pairing it with the lake and the archaeological area works well. It's a day destination, not a long stay with small children.

Is Cittaducale wheelchair accessible?

Only in part. Piazza del Popolo and the central stretch of the Corso are passable. The side streets, the ramps toward the gates and the uneven paving present difficulties. Best to check routes and reserved parking with the Comune.

Can you get to Cittaducale by train?

Yes, with the Terni-Rieti-L'Aquila regional line, but the station is on the plain, far from the historic center, in the Santa Rufina area. You need a road transfer or a taxi to go up to town.

What is the best time to visit Cittaducale?

Autumn, between the end of September and mid-November, for the light and the colors. Alternatively April and May. Summer is hot and muggy in the middle hours. Winter is cold but clear and can be combined with Terminillo.

What do you eat in Cittaducale?

Sagne alla molinara, gnocchi with lamb sauce, beans with pork rind, pasta with chicken giblets, legumes from the Rieti area and, in autumn, chestnuts. Apennine cooking with an Abruzzo imprint.

How many inhabitants does Cittaducale have?

Just over 6,000. The population has been declining for decades, as in almost all the municipalities of the central Apennines, and the presence of the forestry school and of the Rieti-Cittaducale industrial hub contributes significantly to the vitality of the area.

What is the Rieti-Cittaducale industrial hub?

An area of about 500 hectares equipped for production sites, created in 1970 and shared with the provincial capital. It has hosted electronics multinationals and went through a long crisis starting in the 1990s. Today it employs a few thousand workers.

Why does the church of Sant'Agostino have its entrance on the side?

Because the facade was never completed. The access was therefore made on the side wall, toward the square, and the 1450 portal with the lunette frescoed by Lorenzo Torresani in 1548 became the main front of the church.

What is the difference between Cittaducale and the other villages of the Rieti area?

Almost all the neighboring villages grew around a castle or an abbey, with an irregular fabric. Cittaducale is a founded city, designed all at once in 1308 on a regular grid scheme: the closest comparison in the same province is Leonessa, also of Angevin origin.

Is it worth sleeping in Cittaducale?

It makes sense if you use the town as a base for the Rieti area, the Valle Santa, the baths and Terminillo. As the sole destination of a weekend it's a little thin: the accommodation offer is limited and the evening life is that of a small Apennine town.

Does Cittaducale have a patron saint festival?

The patron is San Magno, to whom one of the altars of the cathedral and the cassero of the Angevin Tower are dedicated. For the precise calendar of the celebrations and historical reenactments the reference is the Comune, which publishes the program.

Frequently asked questions about Cittaducale (RI)

Where is Cittaducale (RI)?

Cittaducale is on the Colle di Cerreto Piano, along Via Salaria, in the western part of the Piana di San Vittorino, in the province of Rieti, 10 kilometers from the provincial capital. The village overlooks the valley floor crossed by the Velino river, with the Terminillo massif to the north.

How far is Cittaducale from Rome?

Cittaducale is about 85-90 kilometers from Rome along the Salaria, which in normal conditions means between an hour and 20 minutes and an hour and 40 minutes by car. On summer Sunday returns the travel time can lengthen because of traffic.

When was Cittaducale founded and why does it have a grid plan?

Cittaducale was founded in 1308 at Angevin will, as a garrison of the northern border of the Kingdom of Naples along the line that separated it from the Papal States. Its plan is elliptical and regular, modeled on the scheme of the Roman castrum, with two main perpendicular streets that cross in Piazza del Popolo.

How long does it take to visit Cittaducale?

The historic center of Cittaducale, a town of about 6,000 inhabitants, takes 90 minutes to walk around. By itself it doesn't justify a whole trip from Rome, but it becomes a complete stop if included in a day that also covers the Piana di San Vittorino, with the Terme di Cotilia and Lake Paterno.

Is Cittaducale suitable for a visit with children?

Yes, the historic center of Cittaducale is family-sized: it's small, enclosed and with little traffic. The walls, the gates and the tower work well as a story, and the idea of the city built with a ruler in 1308 can be explained to an 8-year-old in a few minutes.

What are the Terme di Cotilia near Cittaducale?

The Terme di Cotilia, whose ancient place name is Aquae Cutiliae, are in the Piana di San Vittorino west of Cittaducale and are one of the most important Roman thermal complexes of central Italy, with visits cited by ancient authors such as Varro, Livy, Virgil and Seneca.

What is the best time to visit Cittaducale?

Autumn is the best season to visit Cittaducale, no argument: between the end of September and the first half of November the light is low and warm, the Terminillo woods change color and the temperature is ideal for walking. Spring is the second choice, with the plain green and the lakes full.

One last word before you go

If I had to name a single reason to climb up to Cittaducale, I wouldn't pick a church or a museum. I'd pick the experience of walking inside an idea. In 1308 someone took a hill, drew two perpendicular lines across it, laid out an oval of walls and said: here there will be a city. Seven centuries, two earthquakes and three changes of State later, those two lines are still there, and you walk over them going to buy bread.

The final advice is to arrive with the right frame of mind: don't look for the perfect village of the rankings, look for the project. Bring an hour more time than you had planned, call ahead for opening times, and stop for at least 10 minutes in the middle of Piazza del Popolo doing nothing, watching how the civic tower and the bell tower face each other. That's the moment when Cittaducale explains itself.

Anyone organizing a group day in this valley would do well to rely on a local professional: the logistics among baths, lake, reserve and historic center require precise timing, and the experience of a licensed tour guide is worth the kilometers saved. For those preparing a wider itinerary in inner Lazio, the regional overview in English is in the ItalyPlanner guide to Lazio, while those traveling for mountains and nature will find an overall picture in the section on mountains and nature in Italy. For professional services in Rome and surroundings the reference is the page TourLeaderPro Roma.

Article written by the editorial team of TourLeaderPro, contact them for Private/Corporate/V.I.P. Tours and Experiences.

Planning a trip to Rome? The English guides to visiting the city are on ItalyPlanner.com.