Monterano Ghost Town

Antica Monterano is reached from Canale Monterano, in the province of Rome: the town hall is at Piazza del Campo 9, the operations office of the Monterano Regional Nature Reserve is at Piazza Tubingen 1, phone 06 9962724, and for emergencies in the protected area the number given by the managing body is 334 1106434. Entry to the archaeological area and the reserve is free, with no ticket office, no turnstiles and no posted closing hours: you enter on foot along the trails, in any season, with the common sense you use at an unfenced ruin site. The reserve covers about 1,085 hectares in the municipal territory of Canale Monterano alone and is run by the municipality itself. The public email address is riservamonterano@regione.lazio.it. There is no bus stop in front of the ruins: you drive to one of the reserve's parking lots and then walk. Before leaving, it's best to check the reserve's official website for any temporary trail closures due to works or fire risk, because they happen in summer.

How to get to Monterano and where to leave the car

From Rome you leave toward the northwest and aim for Bracciano: the natural route is Via Braccianese, then you continue to Manziana and finally to Canale Monterano. From the Grande Raccordo Anulare allow a little over an hour of driving, more on Saturday mornings in summer, when the whole lakeshore moves at once. The last stretch is on narrow municipal roads, with blind curves and cyclists: you drive slowly, it's not a stretch where you make up minutes.

The four parking lots of the Monterano Reserve

There are four vehicle accesses and they are not equivalent. The Comunaletto parking lot and the Casale de' Persi parking lot are both on Strada Antica Monterano and serve the direct approach to the ghost town. The Cascate della Diosilla parking lot is on Via della Madonnella and serves the side of the waters and the solfatara. The Poggio Lupino parking lot is on Via dei Grottini and opens onto the side of the Etruscan burial hills. If you have only one morning and want the ruins, the right spot is Casale de' Persi: from there the main route measures about four kilometers and takes two and a half hours round trip, starting almost flat through a wood of downy oaks and Turkey oaks.

By public transport to the Monterano ghost town

The regional train on the Viterbo line serves Manziana and Oriolo Romano, but from the station to the ruins there are still several kilometers of road without sidewalks: the bus connection to Canale Monterano exists but is designed for residents, with sparse runs and none on Sunday. If you arrive without a car, count on a taxi or a private transfer from the town, or join an organized excursion. Saying it up front spares the disappointment of those who get off at the station convinced they'll find a shuttle.

How much it costs to visit Monterano

Nothing. There's no ticket for ancient Monterano, no ticket for the reserve, no office handing out receipts at the trail entrances. Any costs are elsewhere: the guided tour, if you book one. Lunch in Canale Monterano. Horse rental if you choose the equestrian route of the Valle del Bicione. Donations and membership fees of the local guides are a private matter between you and whoever accompanies you.

Monterano: what you see and why the fortress is where it is

The hill that holds ancient Monterano is a block of tuff isolated by erosion, bordered on the north and west by the Mignone river and on the south by the Bicione creek. The summit plateau covers 5.3 hectares: a plain defensible on three sides, with only one easy front for an attacker. That's the reason why on this spur there followed one another a Bronze Age village, an Etruscan settlement, a late-antique castrum, a cathedral, a castle and finally a ducal palace designed by the greatest architect of the Roman Baroque. None of those choices is random: tuff is easy to dig, water flows below, the plateau closes with a few hundred meters of wall.

At the foot of the hill, to the north and southeast, the solfataras surface, and a little farther on the Diosilla waterfall. The surrounding territory is dotted with hot springs: the Stigliano baths, equipped for tourist reception, are about three kilometers to the southwest, and the Romans knew them as Aquae Apollinares Veteres. Anyone arriving thinking they'll find just four crumbling walls has the wrong measure: here you walk inside a system of water, sulfur, woods and stone that produced a settlement and then let it die.

Visiting ancient Monterano, monument by monument

Since 1799 the buildings of ancient Monterano have lain in a state of ruin, and the ruin is precisely what makes the place memorable. It's not a museum-ized site: there are no walkways, no panels every 10 meters, no mandatory route with arrows. You climb, you wander, you look. Here is what to look for, in the order you meet it going up from the San Bonaventura side.

The Monterano aqueduct

It's the piece everyone photographs and almost no one reads properly. The aqueduct, restored by the then Province of Rome, carried water across the hills east of the village with an underground channel that came to the surface only in the final stretch, where it had to cross the small valley at the foot of the ducal palace. There the structure rises in a double row of arches, still in excellent condition. It was built in the years immediately after 1671, right after the Altieri bought the fief: a heavy investment, made to bring running water to a village of a few hundred souls. Look at the point where the conduit emerges from the ground: you can see by eye the logic of the project, underground as long as the terrain allows, overhead only where there's no alternative. A ridge settlement doesn't survive without an aqueduct, and this is why the structure was the first thing the Altieri built and the last one left whole.

The circuit of walls and Porta Romana

The plateau was closed by a circuit of walls of which stretches survive and, above all, the gates. To the east opened Porta Romana, hard to read today: it was the quickest way into the settlement for anyone coming from Via Clodia and therefore from Rome, and it was protected directly by the bulk of the castle. Whoever came from Rome passed under the eyes of the garrison. It's not an abstract military detail: it tells you the most important traffic came from the southeast, and that the lord of the castle wanted to see it pass.

Porta Gradella or Cretella

To the south opens Porta Gradella, also called Cretella, and it's the best preserved of the three. From here starts a pedestrian road paved with Roman basalt paving stones, most likely reused material taken from elsewhere, which descended toward the Bicione creek and the sulfur mines. It's the workers' gate, not the lords': the width and the slope tell of a road for men and pack animals, not carriages. If I had to point to the spot where ancient Monterano stops being a stage set and becomes a real town, I'd point to this threshold.

Porta di San Bonaventura

To the west, the San Bonaventura gate connected the settlement with the convent of the same name, built on the plateau just outside the walls. It was the main gate of the village, reachable from the two roads that circled the fortress in a horseshoe. Visitors today almost always enter from here, and they do well: it's the entrance the town considered its own.

The cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta

The cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta seems to have been founded in the 12th century to replace an older cathedral of the same name, which stood on the site later occupied by the castle. From the 13th-century building the great bell tower survives, which remains one of the strongest visual signals of the ruin. The word cathedral is not an affectation: Monterano was an episcopal seat for centuries, and the main church of a settlement of that size is explained only by that dignity. Anyone looking at the bell tower thinking of a country parish doesn't understand what's in front of them.

The ducal palace, the Orsini Altieri castle

It's the most imposing building of the village, erected in a dominant position in the northern part of the settlement, and its stratigraphy is a small handbook of Lazio architectural history. The most recent investigations and architectural analyses have hypothesized that the original cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta stood right here, a hall of 18 meters by 12, with masonry and furnishings attributable to the Carolingian age. In the 12th century a tall masonry tower on a quadrangular plan was built, with a defensive function. In the 13th century an enclosure was joined to the tower, most likely the first fortress on the site. At the end of the fifteenth century the curtain wall was rebuilt and well-made cylindrical towers were added, which are hypothetically attributed to the renovations begun by the Orsini: the resemblance to the towers of the Bracciano castle, owned by the same family, is too strong to be chance.

In 1672 work began to turn the Renaissance castle into a noble residence, initially entrusted to Carlo Fontana. In 1679, at the wish of Prince Altieri, Gian Lorenzo Bernini redesigned the Monterano fortress and turned it into a ducal palace. Bernini joined the two existing towers with a loggia of six arches that deliberately imitates a medieval ruin: on the left the square 12th-century tower, the keep of the castle. On the right the circular fifteenth-century tower, plausibly belonging to the Orsini building site. Stop for a minute in front of that loggia. An architect of 71, at the peak of his European fame, builds a fake ruin to serve as a hinge between two real towers of different eras. It's a sophisticated intellectual operation, and in Lazio you don't find many others.

Bernini's Fountain of the Lion

On the outer wall of the palace, facing Piazza Lunga, Bernini placed a fountain dominated by the statue of a lion striking the rock with its paws, making water spurt out of it: hence the name Fountain of the Lion. The original is no longer on site. The statue you meet today during the visit should be read as a scenic presence, not as the seventeenth-century marble: anyone looking for the authentic piece should ask the Municipality of Canale Monterano, which is the source to consult on the lion's conservation history. That said, the value of the fountain isn't only material: it's the invention that counts. A lion making water gush from rock, in a town built on a tuff cliff and fed by an aqueduct just finished, is a political statement dressed up as sculpture. The Altieri were saying that water, in Monterano, was theirs to give.

The church of San Rocco

Facing Piazza Lunga and set against the ducal palace, the church of San Rocco dates plausibly to the 15th century. The interior has a single nave and keeps the apse with the altar. On either side of the nave open two small chapels. It's a modest building next to a sumptuous one, and for that very reason instructive: devotion to Saint Roch is devotion against the plague, and its presence in the main square tells what the dominant fear of that community was before the cardinals arrived with the architects.

The church and convent of San Bonaventura

The church of San Bonaventura with its attached convent were built between 1677 and 1679 at the urging of the Altieri family. Its care passed through several hands: first to the Discalced Augustinians, then to secular priests and from 1719 to the hermits Servants of Mary of Monte Senario. The architecture, elegant and clean, was designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini and raised outside the village, on axis with the San Bonaventura gate: the alignment is deliberate, the church was meant to appear as a backdrop to anyone leaving the town.

The church has a single nave with two side chapels and had an extradosed dome fitted with a lantern, no longer surviving. The facade was framed by two bell towers. Behind it opened a large three-sided cloister, onto which the convent cells faced: the execution is owed to Mattia de Rossi, Bernini's pupil and faithful collaborator, on the master's design. In the space in front of the facade the square is embellished by an octagonal fountain. A depiction of the church appears in a 1781 painting by G. Barbieri kept in the Altieri palace in Oriolo Romano, and the same painting also shows the ducal palace: two precious images, because they show the complex 18 years before the end.

A firm opinion: San Bonaventura is the real masterpiece of the site, more than the palace. The ruined facade, with sky where the dome used to be, produces an effect no restoration could improve. If you have 40 minutes and not two hours, spend them here.

The Etruscan cavone of Monterano

The cavone is an Etruscan road cutting, dug at mid-slope along the southern slopes of the hill. Its narrow width allowed only pedestrians to pass. The path that runs through it comes from Porta Gradella and descends to the valley furrowed by the Bicione creek. It must be said right away: the cavone cannot be walked because of falling rocks from above, and this isn't a formal recommendation but a physical observation. You look at it from the outside, and that's it. The Etruscan cuttings of the area, from the Sutri area to the Mignone valley, are works of road engineering that anyone who has walked in Tuscia recognizes at a glance: you dig the tuff vertically to lower the gradient, and you accept that the road becomes a corridor as deep as seven or eight meters.

The solfatara and the Diosilla waterfall

The second great chapter of the visit is not archaeological but geological. At the foot of the hill, toward the Bicione creek, the solfatara emits hydrogen sulfide vapors: the smell arrives before the image, and it's not a flaw of the place, it is the place. Along the path leading to the Diosilla waterfall, mists and vapors draw, according to the common description, an almost lunar landscape. The waterfall owes its colors to deposits of iron oxides, which stain the rock rust and ochre.

The red tuff of this sector has an age of between 490,000 and 430,000 years: we are in the Sabatini volcanic district, the one that also produced the basin of Lake Bracciano. The combination of an extinct volcanic vent, sulfurous waters and sunken watercourses explains why the Etruscans consecrated this territory to Manth, the god of the underworld. Practical and non-negotiable advice: don't touch the pools, don't go down into the fumaroles, don't bring dogs near the emissions. Hydrogen sulfide is heavy and stagnates at ground level, and a dog breathes 40 centimeters lower than you.

The nature of the Monterano Regional Nature Reserve

The reserve was established by regional law number 79 of December 2, 1988 and expanded by regional law 62 of 1993 to protect the wetlands as well. It covers about 1,085 hectares between the Tolfa mountains and the Bracciano basin, and its management is entrusted to the Municipality of Canale Monterano.

The flora of the Monterano reserve

In a few hundred meters you pass from gallery riparian vegetation along the watercourses to Mediterranean scrub on the exposed slopes. The woodland is dominated by oaks, with Turkey oak, downy oak and cork oak. In the damp gorges ferns survive, including the rare royal fern. Wild orchids bloom from March to July, which is the period when amateur botanists fill their phone memory.

The fauna of the Monterano reserve

142 species of vertebrates have been recorded, 24 of them included on protection lists. The red kite is the most precious presence: in all of Lazio there are three to five nesting pairs. The short-toed snake eagle, the raptor that hunts snakes, also nests here. Among the amphibians the spectacled salamander stands out, an Italian endemic species. The reserve also counts more than 20 species of dragonflies, and the European pond turtle is found in the waters. The peregrine falcon, the wildcat and the wolf are reported: you see the wolf about as often as you see a haze-free sunset in Rome, that is rarely, but the tracks are there.

The three main trails of the Monterano Reserve

The main routes marked by the managing body are three: Valle Rafanello and Area del Tufo, Valle del Bicione and Bandita, which can be done on foot and on horseback, and Diosilla and Monterano. The third is the one that joins the geological part to the ghost town and is the most requested. The advice is not to take them all on in one day: the ground is clayey, it's slippery after rain, and the time lost going down carefully is always more than you had figured.

Monterano: the history from its Etruscan origins

The name Monterano and the god Manth

The territory of Manziana and of Canale Monterano was consecrated by the Etruscans to Manth, in Latin Mantus, the god of the underworld. From him took its name the silva Mantiana, the great wooded area that dominated the hills west of Lake Bracciano and of which a sector survives today called Bosco Macchia Grande, southwest of Manziana. The settlement of Manziana too almost certainly takes its name from the forest that surrounded it.

The place name Manturianum, later Manturanum, by which the site of Monterano is now generally identified, also refers back to the god Manth. The name is formed from the root Mantur with the addition of the common adjectival suffix ianum or anum, derived in all likelihood from association with the neuter term castrum that appears in early medieval sources: from this it's deduced that the Etruscan name of the settlement could have been Manthuria or Manthura, which became castrum Manturianum in late antiquity because of the presence of a fortification, then corrupted into Manturanum and finally, in Italian, into Monterano. A family name derived from the place name seems recognizable in the attestation of a Larth Manthureie on a dolium found a few tens of kilometers from here.

The association between the woods and the god of the underworld arose in all likelihood from the gloomy, impenetrable look of the forest and the widespread presence of springs of sulfurous water, which the ancients considered an emanation of the underground world. Anyone who has walked beside the solfatara on a November morning understands that theology without needing an explanation.

The Bronze Age and the Etruscan center

The tuff outcrop hosted a Bronze Age village, documented by archaeological materials attributable to the Final Bronze Age, around the 11th century BC. From the 7th century BC the presence of an Etruscan center is attested first of all by the discovery of many tombs that occupy the surrounding hills: Casale Palombara, I Grottini, Franco, Gatta Pelosa with the Pestarole and the remains of shaft tombs, Largo della Bandita with the Tabacco cave and the Grottino, chamber tombs of the 6th century BC, and Ara del Tufo. Given the proximity, the settlement probably fell within the area of political influence of Cerveteri, whose Banditaccia necropolis remains the obligatory benchmark for understanding what a first-rank Etruscan city was.

Rome, Via Clodia and Forum Clodii

The territory began to come under Rome's control in the years following the conquest of Veii, in 396 BC, and the Gallic sack of 390. In 383 BC nearby Sutri fell definitively into Roman hands, but the occupation of minor centers like Monterano didn't come before the middle years of the 4th century, when the old friendship between Rome and Cerveteri broke.

In the second half of the 3rd century Roman control was reinforced by the construction of Via Clodia, which connected Rome to Saturnia and passed about three kilometers east of Monterano, at the spot where the municipium of Forum Clodii arose. That center played an aggregating role to the detriment of neighboring settlements, Monterano included. Traces of a Roman mausoleum downstream of the settlement and arcosolium burials dug into the tuff wall testify, however, that ancient Monterano survived as a small village throughout the Roman age, while the countryside around filled up with villas.

Monterano in the medieval age

With the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the economic, political and demographic crisis that followed, Forum Clodii, which had become an episcopal seat at least from 313, was gradually abandoned in favor of better defended sites, among them nearby Manturanum. Between the 6th and the first half of the 7th century the episcopal seat was moved to ancient Monterano itself: the diocese that included the lands between Lake Bracciano and the Tolfa mountains thus changed its name from diocese of Forum Clodii to diocese of Monterano. The first bishop of whom there is record is Reparato, mentioned in 649.

From about 590 the settlement was included in the Roman Duchy, under Byzantine administration. From 752 it entered the Patrimony of Saint Peter, the first core of the Papal State. The diocese is documented until the 10th century and was later annexed to that of Sutri. In the 11th century the fief became property of the abbey of San Paolo in Rome, which gave the village a quadrangular tower whose structures were later incorporated into the ducal palace.

The settlement became a fief of the Anguillara in the 14th century, then a duchy in the hands of houses close to the Papacy that succeeded one another over time, among them the Colonna from 1424. Sixtus IV granted it with the title of county to Mario Mellini, from whom he bought it back to give it to his own nephew Bartolomeo Giuppo, or Giubba, naturalized Della Rovere. The latter, on July 3, 1487, resold ancient Monterano, together with Cerveteri, to Franceschetto Cybo.

Monterano in the modern age: the Orsini

In September 1492 Gentile Virginio Orsini, already owner of the castle of Bracciano, bought from Franceschetto Cybo the castle of Monterano together with other nearby ones, among them the fortress of Anguillara, and the following year granted them to his son Carlo Orsini. The link with Bracciano is not just administrative: the cylindrical towers of Monterano and those of the Odescalchi castle speak the same building language, because they came from the same patron.

The wine of Monterano

At the time of the Orsini, Monterano was famous above all for its wine. Sante Lancerio, wine steward to Pope Paul III, in a 1549 letter to Cardinal Guido Ascanio Sforza left a judgment worth reading in full.

MONTERANO WINE It is brought to alma Roma overland from a castle so called, a good long day's journey from Rome. This is an ancient castle of the house of Orsini and there is a very great forest called La Mantiana. This wine is so good that to tell of its true goodness and write at length, I would be too long and could not write of it and praise it as much as it deserves to be praised. Such wine I surely believe, by my judgment and my experience, has no equal as a drink in all Italy. Of such wines many Prelates would like to drink, but since the place is small, little wine is made there, so they must have patience.

Anyone who knows Lancerio knows how severe he was: he dismissed wines from famous areas with two lines of contempt. That he writes of Monterano as the best drink in Italy, admitting he can't praise it enough, is an almost unique case in his repertoire. The paradox is that the grape variety of that wine can't be reconstructed with certainty, and no winery today can claim direct descent.

The Altieri, Pope Clement X and the duchy

In October 1671 the fief entered the properties of the Altieri family, through the purchase made by Pope Clement X, born Emilio Altieri. The Altieri had no direct male heirs other than the pontiff himself: it was therefore established that members of the Paluzzi Albertoni family, who had married into the Altieri several times, would take their surname together with the coat of arms and noble titles. Gaspare Paluzzi Albertoni, who became Gaspare Altieri, was thus invested, among others, with the title of Duke of Monterano.

Having acquired the fief, the Altieri undertook works of embellishment and of improvement of the inhabitants' living conditions: the years immediately after 1671 saw the construction of the majestic aqueduct, with the double order of arches in its final stretch, and the building of the church of San Bonaventura with its attached convent, rising on the lower part of the summit plateau. Gaspare Altieri was followed in 1720 by his son Emilio. On the latter's death, in 1721, his brother Girolamo Antonio Altieri took over, and held the title until 1762, when it passed to the firstborn Emilio Carlo Altieri.

The sulfur mines of Monterano

During the 18th century the Altieri neglected the fief and exploited it mainly for the extraction of sulfur from the mines below, favoring the gradual depopulation of the village, perhaps also scourged by malaria. The heart of production was at the solfatara south of the hill, where the Bicione creek runs: around it four extraction galleries have been identified, the Grotta del Taglio, the Grotta del Pozzo, the Grottavecchia and the Grotta del Fuoco. Sulfur was used to disinfest vines and for other industrial activities. Production continued even after the village was abandoned and stopped only shortly after Italian unification. It's an industrial story, and it explains why a town in ruins continued to be frequented for almost a century after the end of its civic life.

1799, the sack and the end of Monterano

In February 1798 French troops entered Rome, put a provisional end to the pope's temporal power and set up the Roman Republic, kept standing through military occupation of the territory until September 1799. The most widespread version holds that a quarrel between the inhabitants of Monterano and those of Tolfa over a load of grain provided the pretext for the attack and sack of the town. The soundest historiographical reading, however, places the burning of Monterano within a much broader framework of uprisings by rural communities hostile to the new revolutionary order, the same that in March 1799 led to the burning and sack of Tolfa itself and of Allumiere. It wasn't a brawl over grain: it was a repression.

The remaining inhabitants abandoned the site, already partly in ruin, and took refuge in nearby centers, in particular in the adjacent settlement of Canale, where over time the present town of Canale Monterano developed. Since then no one has gone back to live on the plateau. Since 1966 Monterano has been a titular episcopal see of the Catholic Church with the double title of Monterano and Forum Clodii, which is the elegant way the Church keeps alive the name of a vanished diocese. A restoration campaign has been promoted by the Municipality of Canale Monterano since 1995.

Antica Monterano as a film set

The ruins, thanks to their visual quality and their closeness to Rome, have been used as a set for many Italian and foreign films. The list, incomplete by definition, includes titles very different from one another.

• Guardie e ladri (1951), by Mario Monicelli and Steno
• Ben Hur (1959)
• La cintura di castità (1967), by Pasquale Festa Campanile
• Brancaleone alle crociate (1970), by Mario Monicelli
• Il marchese del Grillo (1981), by Mario Monicelli
• Dèmoni (1985), by Lamberto Bava
• Ladyhawke (1985), by Richard Donner
• La visione del sabba (1988), by Marco Bellocchio
• I misteri della città eterna (Mad Production, July 2005)
• Il figlio, short film by the Centro sperimentale di cinematografia (July 2005)
• Arrivederci amore, ciao (Studio Urania, December 2005)
• La freccia nera, TV miniseries (Tevere film, January 2006)
• Joe Petrosino (Clemi cinematografica, March 2006)
• Blueray, pilot science-outreach program by CICAP Italia (May 2006)
• Sulle ali della pace (Associazione culturale La tribù dell'arte, June 2006)
• The Three Roses of Eva 3 (RTI, 2014)
• Epilogo di Cony Ray, dramatic short film, independent production (Italy, 2016)
• Puoi baciare lo sposo (2018)
• Luna nera (2020)

The overall count of productions shot here from the 1950s to today is around 100. Monicelli alone came back three times, and not out of laziness: he was looking for a ruin that seemed ancient without seeming fake, and here he found it ready-made.

A curiosity about Monterano, ghost town

The real curiosity isn't that Monterano is a ghost town, but that it's a signed ghost town. There are hundreds of abandoned ruins in Italy, and nearly all are the work of local labor, rebuilt and patched for centuries without an author's name. Not here. On the deserted plateau there are at least two interventions designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini after he turned 70, at a stage when the architect worked for the reigning pope and for the European courts: the transformation of the fortress into a ducal palace in 1679, with the six-arch loggia and the Fountain of the Lion, and the church of San Bonaventura erected between 1677 and 1679, whose construction was overseen by Mattia de Rossi.

The detail almost nobody tells is how bizarre that loggia is. Bernini links the two existing towers, a quadrangular one of the 12th century and a circular one of the fifteenth century, with a row of arches deliberately built to look like a medieval ruin. In 1679 the Romantic taste for the fake ruin didn't exist yet, which would conquer Europe a century later with English gardens: here we have a preview by almost 100 years, carried out in a peripheral fief for a patron who wanted to show off antiquity. And the final irony is that the loggia built to pretend to be a ruin became a real ruin in 1799.

Add a second layer of curiosity: the name of the place itself. Monterano has nothing to do with the mountain. It derives from Manturianum, which derives from Manth, the Etruscan god of the underworld. A ghost town that carries the god of the dead in its name, by pure etymological coincidence, is the kind of combination no novelist would allow himself.

Something nobody tells you about Monterano, ghost town

That the lion of the fountain you see is not the seventeenth-century one. The Fountain of the Lion is the work of Berninian invention, but the sculptural original did not stay on site, and the statue that accompanies the visit today should be looked at knowing this. On excursions you hear it repeated that you're photographing Bernini's lion: it's not accurate, and whoever accompanies you should tell you before you take the shot. For the conservation history and the current state of the original piece, the right contact is the Municipality of Canale Monterano, which also manages the reserve.

The second thing they don't tell you concerns your feet. Monterano is presented as a cultural stroll and tackled instead as a hike: from the Casale de' Persi parking lot to the plateau the main route measures about four kilometers round trip and takes two and a half hours. The ground is earth and clay, with stretches of uneven paving stones and scree. After two days of rain it becomes a skating rink. City shoes here are not a style choice, they're a twisted ankle.

The third thing, which no printed guide remembers: there's no shade on the plateau. The woods accompany the climb and stop at the walls. The town is a bare plateau exposed to the south, and in July at two in the afternoon the temperature at ground level among the ruins is something else compared with the 20 minutes of trail you just did. There's no drinking fountain on the site. You bring the water yourself, and not half a liter.

Frequently asked questions about Monterano, ghost town

How much does it cost to enter Monterano?

Nothing: access to ancient Monterano and the Monterano Regional Nature Reserve is free, with no ticket office. The site can be reached only on foot, along a natural route with no entrance checks, which makes Monterano one of the archaeological destinations in Lazio that is entirely free all year round.

Where exactly is Monterano?

Monterano is in the municipality of Canale Monterano, in the province of Rome, on a tuff plateau within the Monterano Regional Nature Reserve, between the Tolfa mountains and Lake Bracciano. From Rome you leave toward the northwest heading for Bracciano and continuing to Manziana and finally to Canale Monterano.

How long does it take to visit Monterano?

The main route for visiting ancient Monterano runs about four kilometers with elevation change and uneven ground, and takes roughly a couple of hours of walking with stops. It's not a museum-ized site with walkways or a mandatory route: you climb, you wander, you look, which makes it useful to allow extra time to explore at ease.

Is Monterano wheelchair accessible?

No, ancient Monterano is not wheelchair accessible: the site can be reached only by trail, the ground is natural, the paving stretches are uneven and the slopes are unassisted, with no elevators, ramps or tactile paths. Those with walking difficulties can still enjoy the reserve from the accessible rest areas near the parking lots.

Is Monterano suitable for a visit with kids?

It depends on age: under five the four-kilometer route with elevation change and uneven ground is too demanding for Monterano, and a stroller can't be used here. From age six up, on the other hand, Monterano becomes one of the most effective places in Lazio for sparking children's curiosity, thanks to the setting of an empty town with gates, towers and a roofless church.

What is the best time to visit Monterano?

The best seasons to visit Monterano are spring, from mid-March to mid-May, when the wild orchids bloom, and autumn, from mid-October to the end of November, with the wet tuff turning red. Winter is excellent on clear days after a cold front, while July and August are to be avoided because of the heat and the dry vegetation.

What is the Monterano solfatara?

The Monterano solfatara is a geological phenomenon found at the foot of the hill, toward the Bicione creek, and emits hydrogen sulfide vapors recognizable by their smell even before sight. Along the path leading to the Diosilla waterfall, mists and vapors draw a landscape described as almost lunar, quite distinct from the archaeological ruins of the abandoned town.

The advice I give you for visiting Monterano, ghost town

Go in winter, with a high sky after a cold front, or in April before the grass dries. The time of day I recommend without hesitation is early morning, by nine: the raking light enters under the arches of the aqueduct and into the nave of San Bonaventura, the solfatara's steam shows better in cold air, and above all there's nobody. From 11 in the morning on a Sunday in May, on the plateau you find groups, dogs off leash and drones, and Monterano loses half its effect.

The route I suggest is this: Casale de' Persi parking lot, path through the wood of Turkey and downy oaks, arrival at the church of San Bonaventura, 40 minutes inside and around the church and the square with the octagonal fountain, then entry to the plateau through the San Bonaventura gate, a tour of the ducal palace with a long stop in front of the loggia, Piazza Lunga and San Rocco, the cathedral bell tower, descent to the view of the aqueduct, return. If you have the whole day, add the Diosilla starting from Via della Madonnella parking lot in the afternoon, with the low sun on the iron oxide deposits.

Two warnings from a professional. First: bring a headlamp even if you think you'll be out in daylight, because the path in the wood on the way back gets dark long before the plateau does. Second: seriously consider a local guide. Monterano is a site with no panels and no custodians, and a visitor left alone in front of a tuff wall sees a tuff wall. The arcosolium burials and the course of the underground conduit are things you won't find on your own: a local guide helps. For organizing excursions outside Rome with authorized tour leaders you can turn to TourLeaderPro.

Another well-known fact, yet rarely cited

That Monterano was an episcopal seat is read everywhere, but almost no one stops to consider what it means. Between the 6th and the first half of the 7th century the episcopal see was moved from Forum Clodii, a Roman municipium on Via Clodia, to Manturanum: the diocese that held together the lands between Lake Bracciano and the Tolfa mountains changed name and capital. The first bishop of whom a documentary record remains is Reparato, mentioned in 649. The diocese is attested until the 10th century, then was absorbed by that of Sutri.

The fact matters because it overturns the perception of the place. Whoever arrives today sees a rural village of a few hundred inhabitants, destroyed and forgotten. But for at least four centuries this plateau was the religious center of an entire district: here priests were consecrated, ecclesiastical cases were judged, synods were held. The 12th-century cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta, whose bell tower survives, replaced an older cathedral that stood where the castle was later built: two cathedrals in succession on the same plateau are not the furnishing of a village.

Then there is the sequel, and it's the fact almost no one cites: since 1966 Monterano still exists as a titular episcopal see of the Catholic Church, with the double title of Monterano and Forum Clodii. It means that a bishop without a diocese of his own, an auxiliary or a nuncio, can be assigned the title of this uninhabited city. It's a purely legal form of survival: the diocese has no faithful, no parishes, no usable building, and continues to exist on paper. Monterano is a ghost town even in the ecclesiastical yearbooks.

The right photo to take at Monterano, ghost town

The textbook photograph is just one and everyone knows it: the facade of San Bonaventura with the two bell towers and the sky in place of the dome, shot head-on from the square with the octagonal fountain. It should be taken, but taken well, that is early in the morning, when the sun comes from the left and separates the bricks from the background, or in the last half hour before sunset, with the facade in shadow and the sky still lit. At noon that facade becomes a flat wall and the photo dies.

The photograph that few people bring home is instead the aqueduct shot from the bottom of the small valley, with the double order of arches cutting the frame horizontally and the profile of the ducal palace above. You need to go down a few tens of meters from the main trail and you need a short focal length. It's the shot that explains the town: the water that arrives, the fortress that receives it.

A third indication, for those with patience: the six-arch loggia of the ducal palace against the light. If you stand inside the courtyard with the low sun behind the arches, you get a silhouette that looks like a theater set, and that's exactly what Bernini wanted to achieve. Avoid the drone: the reserve is a protected area with nesting raptors, among them the red kite with very few pairs in all of Lazio, and flying a drone in breeding season is real harm, as well as a problem with the managing body. If you want the shot from above, climb the cathedral bell tower with your eyes, not with a propeller.

Some important events that happened here in history

The first episode worth telling is from around 730, and it reads like a novel. A certain Tiberius Petasius tried to usurp the Byzantine imperial throne by taking advantage of the disorder that followed the iconoclast crisis. His adventure ended in the castle of Monterano, where he was killed together with his accomplices by soldiers led by the exarch of Ravenna. A pretender to the Eastern Empire murdered on a tuff cliff at the gates of Tuscia: the periphery that for a moment enters great history.

The second episode is July 3, 1487, when Bartolomeo Giuppo Della Rovere, nephew of Sixtus IV, resold Monterano together with Cerveteri to Franceschetto Cybo, son of Innocent VIII. Two papacies passing a fief from hand to hand through their respective nephews: it's Renaissance nepotism in its most didactic form, and Monterano is the object of it.

The third is September 1492, the month in which Gentile Virginio Orsini bought from Cybo the castle of Monterano and other possessions, among them the fortress of Anguillara: the operation that consolidated Orsini dominion over the lake district and that had heavy political consequences in relations with Alexander VI.

The fourth is October 1671, with the purchase of the fief by Pope Clement X for the Altieri family, and the resulting building site that in fewer than 10 years gave the village a monumental aqueduct, a convent church and a ducal palace redone by Bernini. It was the highest moment in the history of Monterano, and it was also the last.

The fifth and decisive one is 1799. After the French troops' entry into Rome in February 1798 and the proclamation of the Roman Republic, the territory remained under military occupation until September 1799. In that context Monterano was attacked, sacked and burned. Local tradition attributes the spark to a quarrel over grain with Tolfa. The soundest historiographical reconstruction places the event in the chain of anti-French revolts by rural communities, the same one that in March 1799 caused the burning of Tolfa and Allumiere. The surviving inhabitants went down to Canale, and the plateau was never inhabited again.

The sixth is from 1966: the establishment of the titular see of Monterano and Forum Clodii. The seventh, less dramatic and more useful, is December 2, 1988, the date of regional law number 79 that established the Monterano Regional Nature Reserve, later expanded by regional law 62 of 1993 to protect the wetlands. Without that law, today the plateau would in all likelihood be a quarry or a residential complex.

Who has passed through Monterano, ghost town

The weightiest name is that of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, who in 1679, at 71, redesigned the Monterano fortress for Prince Altieri and signed the project of the church of San Bonaventura, erected between 1677 and 1679. With him Mattia de Rossi, his pupil and collaborator, who carried out the convent cloister on the master's design. Before Bernini, Carlo Fontana had passed through the building site, to whom in 1672 the first works to transform the Renaissance castle into a noble residence were entrusted: Fontana and Bernini on the same building, seven years apart, are two names found together in very few places in Lazio.

Among the patrons, Pope Clement X, born Emilio Altieri, who bought the fief in 1671. And before him the Orsini, with Gentile Virginio and his son Carlo, and the Della Rovere, the Cybo, the Colonna, the Anguillara, the Mellini. The year 649 hands down the name of Bishop Reparato. The 18th century hands down the painter G. Barbieri, author in 1781 of the painting kept in the Altieri palace in Oriolo Romano that depicts the church of San Bonaventura and the ducal palace: without that canvas we would have many more uncertainties about how the complex looked before the end.

Then there is Sante Lancerio, wine steward to Pope Paul III, who in 1549 put in writing his judgment on the wine of Monterano: there's no record that he stayed here, but his palate left the town the best review of its history.

Finally the cinema, which brought half of Italy's twentieth century here. Mario Monicelli three times, with Guardie e ladri in 1951 together with Steno, Brancaleone alle crociate in 1970 and Il marchese del Grillo in 1981, and with him Alberto Sordi. Pasquale Festa Campanile for La cintura di castità in 1967. Lamberto Bava for Dèmoni in 1985 and Marco Bellocchio for La visione del sabba in 1988. From abroad, the production of Ben Hur in 1959 and Richard Donner for Ladyhawke in 1985, with Rutger Hauer and Michelle Pfeiffer. In recent times the series Luna nera in 2020. Of all of them, the visit the town remembers best is Monicelli's, who made of this plateau his own idea of the Middle Ages.

What to see around Monterano within half an hour

Monterano alone doesn't justify a whole day for those arriving from Rome, and anyone who pairs it well goes home satisfied. The Manziana caldara is the perfect geological complement: another area of sulfurous emissions, with birches growing where they shouldn't, a few minutes away by car. Next to it is the Macchia Grande wood, the last strip of the silva Mantiana that gave its name to the whole district.

On the lake side, the Odescalchi castle of Bracciano is the obligatory comparison with the ducal palace of Monterano, because the cylindrical towers came from the same Orsini commission. The village of Bracciano solves the lunch problem. Lake Bracciano offers the afternoon outdoors that the plateau doesn't, and Trevignano Romano is the right town to end the day looking at the water.

To the north, the beech forest of Oriolo Romano is a UNESCO heritage site as an old-growth beech forest, and in Oriolo is the Altieri palace where the 1781 painting depicting Monterano before the end is kept. To the west, the village of Tolfa and Allumiere tell the same story of mines, aluminum and the revolts of 1799. And if you want to close the Etruscan circle, Sutri with its amphitheater dug into the tuff and the Banditaccia necropolis in Cerveteri explain where the people who first inhabited this cliff came from. Anyone who prefers to stay within the protected area will find further indications on the page of the Monterano Reserve.

Monterano with kids

It works, on two conditions. The first is age: under five the four-kilometer route with elevation change and uneven ground is too much, and the stroller is unusable here, a baby carrier or child backpack is the only solution. From age six up, on the other hand, Monterano is one of the most effective places in Lazio for sparking curiosity: an empty town, with its gates, towers and roofless church, is a three-dimensional cartoon. It works better than any museum.

The second condition is supervision. There are no parapets, no barriers, and the walls are real walls: you climb, you fall. The cavone cannot be walked because of falling rocks and should be kept out of the tour. The solfatara calls for distance: the vapors stagnate low and a child breathes them more than an adult. That said, the movie game works very well: telling them that Il marchese del Grillo and Ladyhawke were shot here turns the walk into a hunt for camera angles.

Accessibility of the Monterano ghost town

It must be said plainly: ancient Monterano is not wheelchair accessible. The site can be reached only by trail, the ground is natural, the paving stretches are uneven and the slopes are unassisted. There are no elevators, ramps or tactile paths. Those with walking difficulties can still enjoy the reserve from the accessible rest areas near the parking lots and from the flat initial stretches of the trail from Casale de' Persi, but the plateau with the ruins remains out of reach. In recent years the reserve has promoted inclusive tourism and environmental education initiatives: to find out what is actually active in the current season, the reference is the reserve office at Piazza Tubingen 1 in Canale Monterano, phone 06 9962724.

When to go to Monterano and when to avoid it

The best seasons are spring, from mid-March to mid-May, when the wild orchids bloom and the woods are green, and autumn, from mid-October to the end of November, with the wet tuff turning red and the solfatara smoking more in the cold air. Winter is excellent on clear days after a front passes: few visitors, long light, a horizon all the way to the sea.

To avoid: July and August in the middle hours, for the total absence of shade on the plateau and for the fire risk that can lead to temporary trail closures. Also the two or three days after heavy rain, when the clay makes the descent from the plateau an uncomfortable business. The Sundays of May and October are the most crowded of the year: if you go, arrive at dawn or postpone.

Why Monterano is worth the trip

It's worth the trip because it's one of the very few places where you can see the whole arc of an Italian settlement in a single glance: the Bronze Age village, the Etruscan necropolis on the hills, the late-antique castrum, the cathedral, the castle, the Baroque palace, the aqueduct, the mines and finally the void. 3,000 years and a clean, dated, documented end. It's not often you can point to the year a city stopped existing.

And it's worth the trip because Roman Baroque, which in the center you admire inside crowded churches with your neck craned upward, here you meet gutted, roofless, with grass inside the nave. Anyone who has seen San Bonaventura will hardly look in the same way at Bernini's intact churches in the city. If you're planning a trip to Rome and are also looking for context in English, the general guide to things to see is on ItalyPlanner, while day excursions outside the city are collected on the page dedicated to day trips. For groups, companies and private tailor-made experiences in Lazio the reference remains TourLeaderPro.

Quick questions about Monterano

How much does it cost to enter Monterano?

Nothing. Access to ancient Monterano and the Monterano Regional Nature Reserve is free, with no ticket office.

Where exactly is Monterano?

In the municipality of Canale Monterano, province of Rome, on a tuff plateau within the Monterano Regional Nature Reserve, between the Tolfa mountains and Lake Bracciano.

How long does the visit to Monterano take?

The main route from the Casale de' Persi parking lot measures about four kilometers round trip and takes two and a half hours. Adding the Diosilla waterfall and the solfatara it comfortably becomes half a day.

How do you get to Monterano by car?

From Rome you aim for Bracciano and Manziana, then Canale Monterano. From there you reach one of the reserve's four parking lots: Comunaletto and Casale de' Persi on Strada Antica Monterano, Cascate della Diosilla on Via della Madonnella, Poggio Lupino on Via dei Grottini.

Can you get to Monterano by public transport?

Not conveniently. The regional train serves Manziana and Oriolo Romano, but from the stations there are kilometers of road without sidewalks and the bus runs to Canale Monterano are sparse. Without a car an organized excursion is the better choice.

What shoes do you need to visit Monterano?

Hiking shoes or at least ones with a lugged sole. The ground is earth and clay with stretches of uneven paving stones. After rain it's quite slippery.

Is Monterano wheelchair accessible?

No. The site can be reached only by trail on natural ground, without ramps or equipped paths. The rest areas near the parking lots and the first flat stretches remain usable.

Can you take photos at Monterano?

Yes, freely. Drones, however, should be avoided: the area is protected and hosts nesting raptors, among them the red kite with very few pairs in all of Lazio.

Why is Monterano called a ghost town?

Because it was sacked and burned in 1799, during the French occupation, and the surviving inhabitants went down to Canale in the valley and never returned. For more than two centuries the plateau has been uninhabited.

Who designed the buildings of Monterano?

Gian Lorenzo Bernini signed in 1679 the transformation of the fortress into a ducal palace, with the loggia and the Fountain of the Lion, and the project of the church of San Bonaventura built between 1677 and 1679. The cloister was carried out by Mattia de Rossi. In 1672 the first works had been entrusted to Carlo Fontana.

Is the Fountain of the Lion of Monterano the original?

No. The invention is Berninian, but the sculpture you meet today is not the seventeenth-century marble. For the state of the original piece the reference is the Municipality of Canale Monterano.

Which films were shot at Monterano?

Among many: Cops and Robbers (1951), Ben Hur (1959), The Chastity Belt (1967), Brancaleone at the Crusades (1970), The Marquis of Grillo (1981), Demons and Ladyhawke (1985), The Vision of the Sabbath (1988), You May Now Kiss the Groom (2018), Luna Nera (2020). The total of productions shot here is around 100.

Can you visit the Monterano solfatara?

You skirt it along the path toward the Diosilla waterfall, staying on the marked route. You don't go down into the pools and you don't bring a dog near the emissions: hydrogen sulfide stagnates at ground level.

What is the Diosilla waterfall?

A waterfall at the base of the hill, famous for the iron oxide deposits that color the rock rust and ochre. It's reached from Via della Madonnella parking lot.

Is Monterano suitable for children?

From age six up yes, with constant supervision: there are no parapets and the walls are crumbling in several places. Under five the route is demanding and the stroller is unusable.

Can you bring dogs to Monterano?

Dogs are allowed on the reserve trails on a leash, as in any protected area with nesting fauna. They should be kept away from the sulfurous emissions, which stagnate at the height of their breathing.

Do you need to book to visit Monterano?

Not for free access. Yes for guided visits and organized educational activities, which are arranged with the reserve or with local guides.

What's the difference between Monterano and Canale Monterano?

Canale Monterano is the inhabited town, born from the population's move downhill after 1799. Ancient Monterano is the uninhabited site on the plateau, inside the reserve. They are two distinct places a few kilometers from each other.

How big is the Monterano Regional Nature Reserve?

About 1,085 hectares, established by regional law number 79 of December 2, 1988 and expanded by regional law 62 of 1993. It is managed by the Municipality of Canale Monterano.

What is the best time to go to Monterano?

Spring and autumn, with early morning as the ideal moment. Avoid the middle hours of July and August, because on the plateau there's neither shade nor drinking water.

Are there cafes or services at ancient Monterano?

No. There are no cafes, restrooms or drinking fountains on the site: water and food are brought from home, services are found in Canale Monterano.

How high and how large is the Monterano fortress?

The summit plateau covers 5.3 hectares, closed on the north and west by the Mignone river and on the south by the Bicione creek.

One last thing. Monterano rewards those who slow down. If you arrive with the idea of ticking off a ruin and leaving, it will be a forgettable half hour among the stones. If instead you climb up early, sit for 10 minutes on the step of the church of San Bonaventura without talking and listen to the wind passing where the dome used to be, you understand why half of Italian cinema came looking for the Middle Ages right here, and why a town that died in 1799 still tells more than many living museums.

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-language guides to visiting the city are on ItalyPlanner.com.