Nepi (VT)

Nepi is in the province of Viterbo, in northern Lazio, about 50 kilometers north of Rome, perched on a triangular spur of tuff that the ravines have isolated from the rest of the Faliscan plateau. The reference point for visitors is the Museo Civico, at Via Falisca 31 (01036 Nepi VT, telephone 0761 570604, museo@comune.nepi.vt.it): the guided visits to the Rocca dei Borgia and to the catacomb of Santa Savinilla start from there, the two monuments that are worth the trip on their own. The museum is free to enter. The guided visits to the Rocca and the catacomb are paid and follow a fixed schedule on weekends. By car you arrive from the Cassia bis (SS2 bis), Nepi exit, or from Via Flaminia by turning off at Civita Castellana. From Rome the trip takes barely three quarters of an hour when traffic is kind. If you don't drive, you can use the Cotral suburban buses that connect the Saxa Rubra station of metro line A and the Rome terminal with Civita Castellana and Nepi. The frequency is that of a provincial service, so it's best to check the schedules before leaving and allow for longer times than by car. The village is explored entirely on foot, and it's the only sensible way to visit it: the streets of the center are narrow, going up and down, and the beauty of Nepi is precisely in constantly looking out over the emptiness of the ravines.

If you're getting your bearings among the villages of the Tuscia, you'll find the full picture in the complete guide to proposals in Rome and Lazio, where Nepi sits next to Sutri, Calcata and Caprarola.

Where Nepi Is and How to Get There

Nepi occupies the tip of a tuff plateau in the Agro Falisco, the strip of volcanic countryside between the Tiber, the Cimini mountains and Lake Bracciano. The town stands at about 227 meters above sea level and has just under 10,000 residents (9,569 at the most recent census): a number that gives the measure of a living town, not an emptied village good only for the photo. The network of connections revolves around two ancient axes that still cross today: Via Amerina, which from Roman times climbed toward Umbria, and Via Cassia, which runs a little farther west. Those who arrive by car leave the car in the parking lots on the edge of the historic center, because inside the walls it's hard to get through. By train there are no convenient solutions: the Roma Nord railway (Rome-Viterbo) touches Civita Castellana but not Nepi, and from there you still need the bus or a ride. Anyone organizing a single day can combine Nepi with Civita Castellana and Castel Sant'Elia, which share with Nepi the same Via Amerina and the same ravines, so as to put together a coherent itinerary without rushing.

Nepi in Brief: The Tuff Spur Among the Ravines

Geography explains Nepi better than any chronicle. The town rests on a tuff bank isolated on three sides by deep valleys with vertical walls, the ravines, carved over millennia by the erosion of watercourses: the Rio Falisco and the Rio Puzzolo, tributaries of the Treja basin. From whatever side you look at it, the village appears like a stone prow suspended over the green, defended by natural moats that no engineer could have designed better. The most imposing ravine is the Valle Suppentonia, which starts from beneath the town and almost reaches Civita Castellana and Castel Sant'Elia, with walls that in places exceed 100 meters in height, covered in very dense vegetation. This conformation, which today gives vertical views and suspended trails, was for centuries the true fortification of Nepi: the walls and the Rocca added protection only where nature left a gap, that is on the side of the isthmus, the one crossed by Via Amerina. Understanding this structure means understanding why Nepi has always been considered a stronghold, and why Livy called it the lock of Etruria.

The Rocca dei Borgia, the Symbol Monument of Nepi

The Rocca dei Borgia is the first reason most visitors climb up to Nepi, and it doesn't disappoint. It stands on the side of the isthmus, exactly where Via Amerina entered the town, at the point where the tuff isn't enough to defend and human stone is needed. The fortress seen today has the Renaissance layout wanted by the Borgias at the end of the 15th century, when Rodrigo Borgia, risen to the papal throne as Alexander VI, elevated Nepi to a duchy. The Rocca and the village were crossed by the affairs of one of the most talked-about families of the Renaissance: Alexander VI himself stayed here, his son Cesare Borgia, the Duke Valentino who inspired Machiavelli, and above all Lucrezia Borgia, who was duchess of Nepi.

The Rocca dei Borgia and Lucrezia

In 1499 Alexander VI gave the duchy of Nepi to his daughter Lucrezia. Local chronicle remembers her as a munificent administrator, loved and respected by the population, and it is not a gratuitous hagiographic portrait: Lucrezia really did reside in the Rocca, took care of it, and her passage has stayed in the town's memory far more than her Roman black legend. Visiting the Rocca dei Borgia with this frame in mind changes the experience: you're not just looking at a fortress, you're walking in a residence of power where a 21-year-old woman governed a papal fief in person. The structure was then completed and strengthened under the Farnese in the 16th century, when the bastions took the low, sloping shape suited to withstanding artillery fire.

How to Visit the Rocca dei Borgia

The Rocca is visited with a guide, organized by the Museo Civico. On weekends the guided visits to the Rocca generally start in the late morning and in the afternoon, while the catacomb of Santa Savinilla has separate shifts at different times, so you can do both in the same day. On weekdays you go by reservation, for small groups, agreeing the time with the museum. Monday is closing day. Since hours and prices can change with the season, the wise thing is to phone the museum (0761 570604) the day before and book: the Rocca has spaces with limited numbers, and showing up without notice can mean finding the shift full. The guided visit is paid, while the museum itself is free to enter.

The Duomo of Nepi: the Co-Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta

The Duomo of Nepi, the Basilica Co-Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta, is the religious heart of the village and one of the buildings where the town's millennia-old layering reads best. Tradition has it that the Christian building settled on top of a pagan temple, reusing its foundations: a handover between two religions that in Nepi is not a textbook hypothesis, but a reality written in the stone of the lower levels. The church you see today is the result of alterations over the centuries, with its present look marked in large part by the 19th- and 20th-century interventions that followed war damage. The layout, however, keeps the memory of the earlier phases.

The Crypt of the Duomo of Nepi

The part that is truly worth the descent is the crypt, under the presbytery: a space with several small aisles marked off by columns, among the oldest testimonies of Nepi's Christianity. Crypts of this type, in northern Lazio, kept the relics and let the faithful walk around the saint's tomb without disturbing the liturgy above. Entering the crypt of the Duomo of Nepi means descending into the oldest level of the city's devotion. In the Duomo, according to local memory, there is also kept the memory of the pact by which Nepi constituted itself a free commune in 1131, one of those documents that at these latitudes counted as much as a civil birth certificate. If you find the cathedral open outside worship hours, politely ask to go down below: it is the kind of space that hurried groups skip and that instead tells Nepi better than 10 panels.

The Aqueduct of Nepi

The aqueduct of Nepi is the most photographed postcard of the town, and rightly so. Its tuff arches, arranged in stacked tiers, span one of the gorges at the entrance to the built-up area, carrying water from an outside spring to the historic center. The work was completed in 1727, after a building site opened in the early years of the century, and it is a Baroque structure that imitates in form the great Roman aqueducts of the countryside, adapting their scale to the proportions of a village. What strikes you the first time you get there is the relation between the arches and the green of the gorge: the aqueduct does not cross a plain, but a ravine, and this gives it a verticality that plain aqueducts don't have. It's the spot where you should stop at sunset, when the golden tuff absorbs the low light and the arches stand out against the wooded wall on the other side of the gorge. The aqueduct cannot be visited inside, but you can admire it very well from the viewpoints of the center and from the trails that go down toward the valley.

The Sangallo Town Hall

The Palazzo Comunale faces the main square, and the signature it carries is one of those that carry weight: the project was started in 1542 by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, the architect who in the same season was working on the Fabbrica di San Pietro in Rome and on the Farnese palaces. The building site lasted a long time, as happened with provincial public works financed in installments: it was completed only in 1744, over two centuries after the first stone, with the final intervention of Michele Locatelli. The result is an elegant, measured building, with the loggia on the ground floor and the civic tower, which watches over the public space of the village. In front of the palace, the monumental fountain closes the scene with the theatrical taste of the Roman 18th century: it's the spot where the people of Nepi meet up and where the visitor understands that this is, still today, the town's living room. Looking up, you can read the coats of arms and inscriptions that tell of the magistracies and lords who followed one another: a small open-air archive for those with the patience to decipher it.

The Catacombs of Santa Savinilla, the Christian Underground of Nepi

The catacomb of Santa Savinilla is, for those who love Christian archaeology, the real surprise of Nepi: one of the largest underground funerary complexes in Lazio and central Italy, dug into the tuff just outside the town, near the cemetery. You enter through the 17th-century church of San Tolomeo, which serves as its threshold. The dating, drawn from the type of tombs, the inscriptions and the materials, places the use of the catacomb between the 4th and 5th centuries, when the Christian community of Nepi, which had been a bishop's seat since the 4th century, buried its dead here.

What the Catacomb of Santa Savinilla Is Like

The complex is organized on three main galleries, each about 35 meters long and about 3.5 meters wide, which develop in the tuff with the typical order of late antique underground cemeteries. The tombs number more than a thousand: mostly loculi, that is niches cut into the walls, closed with tiles and sealed with white mortar. On some burials, paintings by local artists datable to the 14th century are preserved, a sign that the place continued to be visited and venerated well beyond the early Christian age. On many mortar slabs you can still read funerary inscriptions, painted or scratched, which give back the names and formulas of those laid to rest here. Walking in these galleries, with the light revealing the loculi as far as the eye can see, gives the measure of how populous and structured the Christian Nepi of the origins was.

Santa Savinilla, Tolomeo and Romano

The name of the catacomb refers to Santa Savinilla, a figure tied to the Christian origins of the territory. Local tradition links the complex to the patron saints Tolomeo and Romano, who according to legend were buried here and whom the Nepi calendar remembers on August 24. As with many figures of the first centuries, documented history and devotional tradition intertwine: it's best to keep the two levels distinct, but it is precisely in this interweaving that the religious identity of the village lives. The visits to the catacomb are guided and paid, with shifts set by the Museo Civico on weekends and the possibility of booking on weekdays. The environment is underground, cool and damp, so a sweatshirt is a good idea even in summer, and shoes with a sole that grips the slippery floor.

The Church of San Tolomeo in Nepi

The church of San Tolomeo deserves a chapter of its own, and not only because it is the gateway to the catacomb. It was begun in 1543 to a design by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, the same as the Palazzo Comunale, to house the relics of the holy martyrs of the territory. The building site had the troubled life of so many 16th-century works: the work stopped around 1550 and resumed only in 1588, entrusted to Giovanni Antonio Garzoni and to Flaminio Ponzio, the architect who in Rome would sign the Pauline Chapel in Santa Maria Maggiore. The building was finally opened for worship in 1606. Inside, the church preserves the Counter-Reformation layout designed for the veneration of relics, with the octagonal crypt that acts as a hinge with the underground world of the catacomb. It's the perfect example of how at Nepi every monument is connected to the others: the surface church and the underground cemetery form a single devotional organism born to guard the same holy bodies.

The Other Churches of Nepi

Anyone with time will discover that Nepi, for a town of its size, has a surprising density of churches, the fruit of centuries in which the village was a bishop's seat and the capital of a duchy. The church of San Biagio is probably the oldest still legible: it already existed in 950 and in the apse preserves 13th-century frescoes that are among the most precious medieval paintings of the territory. The church of San Pietro Apostolo shows a late Baroque face, while San Giovanni Decollato, built in 1564, belongs to the Counter-Reformation season. Alongside these are counted Santa Croce, San Silvestro Abate, San Bernardo, San Rocco, Santi Vito e Modesto, the church of the Madonna dell'Umiltà, Sant'Eleuterio, Santa Maria degli Angeli and several others, many of them now deconsecrated or open only on special occasions. You don't need to visit them all: it's enough to know that strolling through the historic center you meet a bell tower at every turn, and that each one marks the memory of a confraternity, a cult or a neighborhood.

The Historic Palaces of Nepi

The noble fabric of Nepi can be read in the palaces that dot the center. Palazzo Celsi, a work in the Sangallo manner commissioned by Ascanio Celsi, preserves frescoed rooms and testifies to the level of the families who revolved around the ducal court. Palazzo Sansoni, an elegant 16th-century building, stands out for its four-arch loggia that opens the facade onto the street. Palazzo Pisani, from the 16th century, has a precise claim to fame: Pope Pius VII was hosted there in 1805, on his return from Paris. Palazzo Savi, medieval, preserves a 16th-century loggia. Palazzo Floridi, also medieval, raises a tuff tower that signals from afar the rank of whoever lived in it. Palazzo Melata adds a note of Roman barocchetto with its decorative stuccoes. None of these buildings is a museum with a ticket office: they are architectures to look at from the outside, walking with your nose in the air, to understand how a small provincial capital displayed its prestige.

The Farnese Bastions and the Towers of Nepi

The defense of Nepi isn't exhausted in the Rocca. On the side of the isthmus runs the circuit of the Farnese bastions, designed around 1540 by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, who within a few years signed at Nepi the fortress, the town hall and the church of San Tolomeo. They are works of modern fortification, with the low, oblique profiles designed to absorb cannon fire rather than offer a tall target. Giorgio Vasari, who knew about military architecture, called this defense impregnable and beautiful, a judgment that joins effectiveness to form. Behind the bastions the medieval towers line up, square in plan and built of tuff blocks, some isolated, others incorporated into the fabric of the buildings: the Torre di Valle, the Torre di Corte and others mark the profile of the village. A short distance outside, the territory preserves the traces of the Castello di Filissano, outpost of the fortified system that controlled the countryside. This whole apparatus tells the same thing: Nepi was a lock, and whoever held Nepi held the road to Etruria.

The Ravines, the Valle Suppentonia and the Waterfalls of Nepi

If the monuments tell the history of men, the ravines tell that of water and time. Around Nepi the valleys open with almost vertical walls of tuff, dominated by a lush vegetation that in summer turns them into green canyons. The Valle Suppentonia is the largest and the most scenic, with wall drops that in some stretches approach 100 meters, but the whole perimeter of the village is a succession of gorges, suspended trails and lookouts. Walking the ravine trails means seeing Nepi as travelers of antiquity saw it: a natural fortress emerging from the green. Careful, though: the trails are valley-floor trails, often damp and uneven, and not all are marked. It's best to ask in town and not venture out alone after rain.

The Cavaterra Waterfall in Nepi

The Cavaterra waterfall is the closest to the town, right at the gates of the village: a drop of water that plunges into the ravine a few steps from the houses, one of those places where the wild countryside comes to touch the walls. It's the right place for those with little time who still want to take home the image of Nepi between rock and water, without tackling the long valley-floor trails.

The Picchio Waterfall and the Drops of the Rio Falisco

More immersed in nature is the Picchio waterfall, one of the water drops fed by the Rio Falisco system that descend into the maze of ravines. Here the water has carved basins and ledges in the tuff, and the riverside vegetation closes the scene like a natural greenhouse. The territory of Nepi counts several other waterfalls tied to the mineral springs, from the drops of the Sette Frati to those of the Fornace area: they are destinations for hikers, to be reached with suitable shoes and with the caution that slippery valley floors demand. The advice is to pick one or two of these waterfalls and enjoy them calmly, not to chase them all in one day.

The Sunken Roads and the Faliscan Necropolises of Nepi

Before the Romans, before the Christians, before the Borgias, these lands belonged to the Falisci, a people whose language was close to Latin but whose culture was close to the Etruscans, and whose largest center was Falerii, present-day Civita Castellana. Nepi belonged to this world, and its territory preserves the signs of it. The sunken roads, or Tagliate, are ancient routes dug into the living walls of tuff in the ravines: roads sunk between walls of rock, of Faliscan origin, which in the medieval centuries were partly reused, with caves turned into chapels and hermitages. The most impressive is the one called il Cardinale, a tuff corridor that gives a physical idea of what it was to move through this landscape 2,500 years ago.

The Necropolises Along Via Amerina

Along Via Amerina, the ancient road that linked the Faliscan territory to Umbria, the necropolises line up. The most famous is the Tre Ponti one, on the border between Nepi, Fabrica di Roma, Castel Sant'Elia and Civita Castellana: it takes its name from the remains of three bridges of the 3rd century BC and preserves burials of different types, some with wall decorations, distributed along the road route. Not far away, the Cavo degli Zucchi is considered the largest Faliscan necropolis in existence, also dug along Via Amerina between Civita Castellana and Nepi. These are places where the ancient road, the tombs and the ravines merge into a single archaeological landscape, where the Roman road cuts the tuff exactly as the Falisci cut it: walking there means reading in sequence all the ages of Nepi.

The Mineral Water of Nepi and the Springs

No account of Nepi is complete without water, because water is literally in the name of the town and in its economy. The town motto says that the city of Nepi, noble and powerful, has very fertile fields in which healthful waters gush forth: it isn't rhetoric, it's geology. The volcanic subsoil filters and mineralizes the rains, and brings them back up in dozens of springs. Acqua di Nepi, bottled by the local plant, has been known for generations and is distributed well beyond the regional borders. The waters of the territory are distinguished by their fixed residue and by the concentration of the different salts: bicarbonates, sulfates, chlorides, calcium, magnesium, fluorine, iron, sodium, in dosages that vary from spring to spring. Strolling through town you constantly come across fountains, small fountains, wash houses and public drinking troughs built over the centuries, some monumental, others modest: they are the street furniture of a town that has always lived with water and built its fortune on water.

The Monte Calderone Solfatara and the Baths of the Gracchi

A short distance from the town opens the solfatara of Nepi, in the Monte Calderone area: an area of hydrothermal activity in which sulfurous water surfaces hot and smelling of sulfur, with the typical pools and the white and yellowish deposits that signal the volcanic breath of the subsoil. It's a landscape that surprises those who expect only village and ravines, and that recalls how young, in geological terms, this part of Lazio is. The thermal vocation of Nepi has ancient roots: the territory preserves the memory of the Terme dei Gracchi, a Roman-era facility traced back to the 2nd century BC, a sign that the ancients already used these waters to care for the body. Sulfur caves, ferrous springs and sulfurous springs complete the picture of a subsoil that at Nepi has never been just a passive support, but an active resource, exploited from the Faliscan age to today's bottling industry.

The History of Nepi, From the Falisci to the Kingdom of Italy

The history of Nepi is almost 3,000 years long and is worth following in phases, because every era has left a trace that can still be seen.

Faliscan and Etruscan Nepi

The oldest finds testify to settlements in the area already in the protohistoric age: sites such as Pizzo and Torre Stroppa prospered until the final Bronze Age, around the 11th century BC. After a phase of depopulation, stable occupation of the tuff spur began in the 8th century BC. Nepi entered the Faliscan orbit and, until the Roman conquest, gravitated within the territory of Veii, with craft production similar to that of Falerii. It is in this phase that the sunken roads are dug and the first necropolises are opened along the routes that would later become Via Amerina.

Roman Nepi: The Lock of Etruria

Livy reports that in 383 BC Nepi was an ally of Rome. Together with Sutri, Nepi was called Claustra Etruriae and Antemuralis Etruriae, that is lock and outwork of Etruria: the two strongholds controlled the routes of penetration toward the north, and their loyalty was worth as much as an army. During the Second Punic War Nepi was among the 12 Latin colonies that refused to support Rome, and paid the consequences with doubled burdens. Having become a municipium, the Roman city had patrician villas, an amphitheater, the baths of the Gracchi and the funerary monuments lined up along Via Amerina, of which cippi, statues and tombstones remain. The Roman road is the backbone around which a good part of Nepi's archaeological heritage is still arranged today.

Nepi in the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine Via Amerina

A bishop's seat since the 4th century, Nepi passed through the barbarian invasions suffering sackings, but experienced a new centrality during the Greek-Gothic wars, when Via Amerina became the only safe artery linking Rome to Ravenna through the Byzantine corridor, bypassing the Lombard territories. Pope Gregory the Great sent Duke Leontius to defend it. In the 8th century Nepi was the protagonist of a sensational episode: the Nepi nobleman Totone, of Lombard stock, marched on Rome and had his own brother elected pope, who took the name Constantine II. The coup was short-lived, and the following year the usurpation was swept away, but it remains one of the moments in which a lord of this small village laid hands on the throne of Peter. In 915 the people of Nepi defeated the Saracens. In 1002, not far away, at Castel Paterno, Emperor Otto III died.

The Free Comune, the Borgias and the Farnese

Nepi constituted itself a free comune in 1131, and the memory of the pact is tied to the Duomo. In the following centuries it fought against Rome in 1160 and was besieged by Frederick II in 1244. It then passed to the prefetti di Vico, the Orsini and the Colonna, according to the alternating fortunes of the Lazio fiefs. The turning point came with Rodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander VI, who first ceded Nepi to Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, then took it back, elevated it to a duchy and in 1499 gave it to his daughter Lucrezia Borgia. Under Paul III Farnese the fief merged into the Duchy of Castro and Nepi, entrusted to Pier Luigi Farnese, which between 1537 and 1545 experienced a season of great urban development: this is the Nepi of Sangallo, of the bastions, the town hall and San Tolomeo.

The Modern Age and Unification

When Pier Luigi Farnese was named duke of Parma and Piacenza, Nepi returned under the direct rule of the Holy See. Under Sixtus V the city was declared independent and raised the senatorial insignia S.P.Q.N., in imitation of Roman civic pride. On December 2, 1798 it was sacked by retreating French troops. A few days later, nearby, the clash was fought between the French army led by General Kellermann and the Bourbon one, with an outcome favorable to the French. In 1805 Nepi hosted Pope Pius VII on his return from Paris. On September 13, 1870, on the eve of the taking of Rome, it was occupied by Italian troops and annexed to the Kingdom of Italy, quietly closing its almost 3,000 years of autonomous history.

The Etymology: Why It's Called Nepi

The name Nepi, in the ancient form Nepet or Nepete, would derive from the Etruscan Nepa, which means water: the most accredited explanation, and the one that best fits the water vocation of the place. The foundation legend adds color: it is told that the founder, Termo Larte, while tracing the pomerium, that is the sacred furrow that delimited the city, saw a water serpent emerge, worshipped as a deity, and drew a favorable omen from it. Another interpretation links the name to a scorpion deity, in relation to the shape that the streams draw around the spur. These are explanations to be taken for what they are, traditions and etymological hypotheses, not documented facts. But they all converge on water, and water at Nepi really is the thread that ties together geology, name, economy and devotion.

The Festivals and Traditions of Nepi

Nepi is a town that lives its anniversaries with real participation, and whoever happens to come on the right dates leaves with an idea of the village different from the one given by the stones. The main festival is the Palio dei Borgia, which generally takes up the first three weeks of June: it includes the horse joust and the archers' tournament, but above all the historical procession that reenacts the handover of the duchy to Lucrezia Borgia in 1499, with hundreds of extras in Renaissance dress. It's the occasion in which the history of the Borgias stops being a caption and becomes a street spectacle. In May the Sagra del Pecorino Romano is held, in September the Divinarte event dedicated to art and wine tasting. On the religious side, on January 17 Sant'Antonio Abate brings the evening procession with the blessing of the Focarone, the big bonfire. Holy Week marks the visits to the Sepulchers and the procession of the dead Christ. The Sundays of May are devoted to Marian cults. Corpus Domini is celebrated with the solemn procession on the carpet of flowers. They are traditions worth seeking out, because they show a town still bound to its own calendar.

The Cuisine of Nepi

At the table Nepi remains faithful to the countryside that surrounds it. Pork processing is the typical activity par excellence, and gives two products that are found here at their best: the salame cotto and the scapicollata, a cured pork neck sausage that deserves to be tasted on the spot. The local pecorino romano is of high quality, so much so that it has a festival dedicated to it. Among the humble dishes is acquacotta, the shepherds' soup, plain and substantial, made with what the vegetable garden and the woods offered. Pastry follows the seasons: the Christmas fagottelli and the fave dei morti of fall are the sweets that mark the calendar. Pair it all with a glass of wine from the Cimini and, of course, with Nepi water, and you'll have the lunch the village has always served.

A Curiosity About Nepi (VT)

The curiosity that almost nobody knows concerns a pope born of a coup by a man from Nepi. In the 8th century Totone, a nobleman of Nepi, marched on Rome with his armed men and imposed the election of his brother to the papal throne: that brother became Constantine II. It wasn't an ordinary ecclesiastical career, because Constantine was a layman, and his rise was a downright military forcing. The next year the usurpation collapsed and his name ended up among the antipopes. That a lord of a small tuff village manufactured a pope, even for a few months, says more than a thousand pages about the strategic importance of Nepi in the early Middle Ages: whoever controlled this lock on Via Amerina could afford to lay hands on Rome. It's the kind of episode you won't find in the first result of a search on the village, and that instead explains why popes, dukes and emperors kept contending for centuries over a town of a few thousand souls.

Something Nobody Tells You About Nepi (VT)

Here is a practical detail that changes the visit and that no brochure highlights: the two symbol monuments of Nepi, the Rocca dei Borgia and the catacomb of Santa Savinilla, are not visited whenever you happen to come, but only with a guide and at precise times, managed by the Museo Civico at Via Falisca 31. On weekends the shifts are separate, the catacomb at one hour and the Rocca at another, and on weekdays you get in only by reservation for small groups. On Monday everything is closed. Anyone who arrives in Nepi on a Monday, or on a Saturday without having phoned, risks finding themselves in front of the barred fortress and having to settle for the view. The countermove is trivial but decisive: call the museum (0761 570604) the day before, get the updated shift times and book. In addition, since the catacomb is an underground space that stays cool and damp all year, bring a sweatshirt even in midsummer: you go underground, and the temperature difference is felt right away.

The Advice I Give You for Visiting Nepi (VT)

The advice is to treat Nepi as a full half-day and not as a hit and run. Arrive for the morning opening, start with the catacomb of Santa Savinilla while the air is still cool, go back up for the visit to the Rocca dei Borgia in mid-morning, then leave the afternoon free for the historic center and the ravines. The best moment for the aqueduct and the viewpoints is the low light of late afternoon, when the tuff turns golden and the ravine fills with shadows. Have lunch in town, order the scapicollata and the pecorino, and don't be in a hurry to leave. If you have a whole day, combine Nepi with Civita Castellana and Castel Sant'Elia, which share the same Via Amerina and the same gorges: it's a coherent itinerary, all Faliscan and all water, which will keep you from chasing unconnected destinations. One last concrete warning: comfortable shoes with a sole that grips, because between sloping alleys, crypts and valley-floor trails you really do walk here.

Another Well-Known Fact, Yet Rarely Cited

That Nepi is tied to Lucrezia Borgia many people know. That she was its duchess in full title, with real power over the fief, is almost always forgotten. In 1499 Alexander VI did not give her a symbolic gift: he handed her the government of a papal duchy, and Lucrezia exercised it, residing in the Rocca and administering the territory. Local memory remembers her as munificent, loved and respected, a portrait far from the black legend that the Roman vulgate has sewn onto her. It's worth keeping in mind in front of the Rocca: those walls don't guard only the story of poisons and intrigue that the movies have told us, but also the much more concrete one of a very young woman who for a few years was truly the lady of Nepi. The Palio dei Borgia, every June, reenacts precisely the handover of the duchy in 1499: it is proof that the town chose to remember Lucrezia as an administrator, not as a scandal figure.

The Right Photo to Take at Nepi (VT)

The photograph that brings home the soul of Nepi is not the close-up of a portal, but the aqueduct that spans the ravine. The spot is at the viewpoints at the entrance of the historic center, from which the tuff arches can be seen detaching against the wooded wall on the other side of the gorge. The right time is late afternoon, when the low sun lights up the tuff and draws sharp shadows between one arch and the next. At noon the flat light flattens everything and the green of the ravine becomes an indistinct blur. Anyone who wants the wilder variant should instead go down toward the Cavaterra waterfall, at the gates of the village, and look for the frame in which water and rock touch right under the houses: it's the image that sums up Nepi in a single stroke, the city of stone and the water that lives against it. In both cases, the secret is to include both the structure and the ravine: photographing the aqueduct without the emptiness it spans means not having understood why that bridge exists.

Some Important Events That Happened Here in History

Nepi has seen armies, popes and emperors pass through, and some dates deserve to be kept in mind. In 383 BC, according to Livy, the city seals the alliance with Rome that will turn it into the lock of Etruria. In 915 the people of Nepi repel the Saracens, in one of the many episodes of the raids that bloodied early medieval Lazio. In the 8th century the already mentioned coup of Totone leads a man from Nepi to manufacture a pope. In 1131 the village constitutes itself a free comune, taking its civic destiny into its own hands. In 1244 Frederick II lays siege to it, a sign that in the game between empire and papacy Nepi was a coveted stake. In 1499 the handover of the duchy to Lucrezia Borgia opens the Renaissance season of the Rocca. In December 1798, during the revolutionary wars, the town is sacked by retreating French troops and nearby the clash between the French and the Bourbons is fought, in which General Kellermann's army prevails. In 1805 Pius VII stops there on his return from Paris. Finally, on September 13, 1870, on the eve of Porta Pia, Nepi is occupied by Italian troops and annexed to the Kingdom of Italy. 2,300 years compressed into a handful of dates, all still readable in the stones of the village.

Who Passed Through Nepi (VT)

The list of those who passed through Nepi is out of proportion to the size of the town, and this is perhaps its best calling card. Lucrezia Borgia passed through and resided there, duchess from 1499. Her father Rodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander VI, passed through, and her brother Cesare Borgia, the Duke Valentino who was the model for Machiavelli's prince. Antonio da Sangallo the Younger put his hand to it as an architect, leaving at Nepi the Rocca, the Palazzo Comunale and the church of San Tolomeo, and on the site of the latter Flaminio Ponzio worked later, the architect of the Pauline Chapel in Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. Paul III Farnese passed through, who made Nepi part of the duchy entrusted to his son Pier Luigi. Giorgio Vasari, judging the fortifications, called them impregnable and beautiful. Among the pontiffs, in 1805 Pius VII stopped there on his return from France, a guest of Palazzo Pisani. And if you go back far enough, you meet the Roman historians, starting with Livy, who wrote of Nepi as a bulwark of the State. Walking in the village with these names in your head changes your pace: every stone has seen pass by someone the history books know well.

Nepi With Children

Nepi lends itself to a family outing better than you'd think. The visit to the Rocca dei Borgia, if told well, has all the ingredients that capture the little ones: a real fortress, a young duchess, a legendary family. The catacomb, instead, has to be judged case by case: the underground, narrow space fascinates adventurous kids but can impress the more timid, so it's better to test the waters first. The ravines and waterfalls offer an outdoor outlet after the cultural part, as long as you stick to the safe trails and avoid the valley floor after rain. The historic center, small and closed to traffic in the upper part, can be walked without worrying about cars. One precaution: almost everything in Nepi is done on foot and on a slope, so the stroller is more a burden than a help, and a baby carrier is better for the youngest.

When to Go to Nepi

The best time for Nepi runs from spring to early fall, with two ideal windows: May and June, when the gorges burst with green and the calendar fills with local festivals up to the Palio dei Borgia, and September, when the heat eases and Divinarte brings art and wines into the square. Midsummer is enjoyable because the gorges and the catacomb offer some relief, but the middle hours of the day can be muggy in town. Winter has its austere appeal, with the Focarone di Sant'Antonio Abate on January 17 and the Holy Week rites, but the short days and the damp of the valley floors make hikes more complicated. In every season the practical advice stays the same: check the visiting hours for the Rocca and the catacomb before you leave, because that, and not the weather, is the real factor that decides how the day goes.

What to See Around Nepi

Nepi is an excellent base for the southern Tuscia, and the surroundings pay back every kilometer. A short distance away, on the same Via Amerina, are Sutri, with its amphitheater carved into the tuff, and Calcata, the rock village hanging over the Treja valley. A little farther north you climb to Caprarola, dominated by the bulk of Palazzo Farnese, and to Ronciglione, overlooking Lake Vico. Toward the provincial capital you reach Viterbo, city of the popes, with the great Macchina di Santa Rosa, and the Italian gardens of Villa Lante in Bagnaia. Farther away, but still in the Tuscia, these are worth the trip: Tuscania with its Romanesque basilicas, the Monster Park of Bomarzo, Montefiascone with its view of Lake Bolsena and the spectacular Civita di Bagnoregio. Heading down toward Rome, instead, you come to Lake Bracciano, and if you like curious stories, the detour to Sant'Angelo di Roccalvecce, the fairy tale village is worth it.

Roman Nepi: Amphitheater, Villas and Mausoleums

Under the Renaissance and medieval village there is a Roman city that often escapes the hurried visitor, because there is no single great monument to point it out and it is scattered across the territory. When Nepi was a municipium, its wealth was measured in patrician villas spread through the countryside, in an amphitheater for shows and in thermal baths fed by the local waters, the very Terme dei Gracchi whose memory goes back to the 2nd century BC. Along Via Amerina stood the mausoleums and funerary monuments of the notables, following the Roman custom of burying the dead along the sides of roads, at the edge of town. Of that setting what remains are cippi, statue bases and tombstones, partly gathered in the museum's collections and partly still readable on the ground. Don't expect monumental ruins in the Roman Forum style: ancient Nepi has to be looked for with a trained eye, in the stretches of paving stones, in the blocks reused in houses, in the inscriptions walled in here and there. This very continuity, though, is fascinating: in Nepi the tuff quarried by the Faliscans was cut by the Romans, reused by the medieval builders and reshaped by the Borgias, without a break, so that each stone often has more than one life behind it.

The Museo Civico di Nepi

The Museo Civico di Nepi, at Via Falisca 31, is the organizing hub of every visit and deserves to be considered the first stop, not a fallback for bad weather. It gathers the materials that tell the long story of the territory, from the Faliscan and Roman finds from the necropolises of Via Amerina to the evidence of the ducal period, and it works as a welcome center and ticket office for the visits to the Rocca dei Borgia and the catacomb of Santa Savinilla. Entry to the museum is free, which also makes it the cheapest way to get an idea of Nepi before deciding which monuments to explore in more depth. The staff manage the shifts of the guided visits, limiting access when needed for reasons of space and safety, and it's best to rely on them from the moment you arrive: a quarter of an hour in the museum, with a map and the day's hours in hand, saves you from wandering around the village aimlessly. Useful contacts: telephone 0761 570604, email museo@comune.nepi.vt.it. Closed on Mondays.

Nepi and Via Amerina: Walking the Ancient Road

Via Amerina is the common thread that holds together almost everything worth seeing in Nepi, and it's worth spending a few more words on it. Opened by the Romans to connect southern Etruria to Umbria, toward Amelia and beyond, it followed even older Faliscan routes and crossed the territory of Nepi by cutting through the tuff, exactly as the pre-Roman sunken roads were cut. During the Greek-Gothic wars, in the 6th century, Via Amerina became the axis of the so-called Byzantine Corridor, the only protected route that kept Rome and Ravenna connected while bypassing the Lombard domains. That is why Nepi, sitting on that road, counted for much more than its size would suggest. Today stretches of the ancient paving, the remains of the bridges and the necropolises can be walked, especially in the area of the Tre Ponti and the Cavo degli Zucchi, where the road, the tombs and the gorges form a single landscape. If you really want to understand Nepi, walk at least one stretch of this road. It is the backbone on which the village took shape, and it gives back, in a physical way, 2,000 years of passing traffic.

Where to Sleep and Eat in Nepi

Nepi also works well as a base for one or two nights in the Tuscia, with lodging made up mostly of agriturismi, small bed and breakfasts and country properties scattered among the gorges and the vineyards. The historic center has a few addresses, but most of the hospitality is in the ring of green around the village, convenient if you get around by car. At the table it's best to aim for the town's trattorias, which serve the local cooking without frills: pork cured meats, pecorino, handmade pasta first courses and, in the right season, traditional sweets. A practical warning from someone who knows the rhythms of the villages: outside weekends and festivals many places keep reduced hours, so it's best to ask or book, especially for lunch on weekdays and in the less touristy months. Take home a few bottles of Nepi water anyway, and a pack of scapicollata. They are the most honest souvenir the town can offer.

Quick Questions About Nepi (VT)

Where is Nepi?

Nepi is in the province of Viterbo, in northern Lazio, about 50 kilometers north of Rome, on a spur of tuff of the Agro Falisco isolated by the gorges.

How do you get to Nepi from Rome?

By car on the Cassia bis (SS2 bis), exit Nepi, in about three quarters of an hour. Without a car, take the Cotral buses from Saxa Rubra toward Civita Castellana and Nepi, checking the schedule first.

How much time do you need to visit Nepi?

A full half day is enough for the Rocca, the catacomb and the historic center. Allow a whole day if you add the gorges, the waterfalls and the nearby villages.

Can you visit the Rocca dei Borgia in Nepi?

Yes, with a guided visit organized by the Museo Civico, at fixed times on weekends and by reservation on weekdays. It's closed on Mondays.

How much does the Rocca dei Borgia cost?

The guided visit is paid. Entry to the Museo Civico is free. For the current amount it's best to contact the museum at 0761 570604, because the rates vary.

How do you visit the catacomb of Santa Savinilla?

With a guided visit, paid, at times different from those of the Rocca on weekends and by reservation on weekdays. You enter from the church of San Tolomeo.

Is the catacomb of Nepi suitable for people with claustrophobia?

It's an underground space with narrow galleries about 35 meters long. If you suffer a lot from enclosed spaces, think it over carefully. It's cool and damp, so bring a sweatshirt.

Do you need to book to visit Nepi?

For the Rocca and the catacomb it's strongly recommended, and mandatory for groups on weekdays. Call the museum the day before.

What is the closing day in Nepi?

On Mondays the guided visits to the Rocca and the catacomb are not held. The historic center, the gorges and the aqueduct are of course always accessible.

How old is Nepi?

The spur was permanently occupied from the 8th century BC in the Faliscan sphere, but the area was already inhabited in the Bronze Age. The documented history goes back more than 2,000 years.

Why is Nepi called that?

The ancient name Nepet would derive from the Etruscan Nepa, which means water, consistent with the village's water vocation. The legend tells of a water snake seen by the founder Termo Larte.

What does Lucrezia Borgia have to do with Nepi?

In 1499 Alexander VI raised Nepi to a duchy and gave it to his daughter Lucrezia, who was its duchess and lived in the Rocca. The Palio dei Borgia re-enacts the handover.

What is Nepi water?

It's the mineral water bottled in Nepi from springs in the volcanic subsoil, known and distributed well beyond Lazio. The territory is rich in springs, fountains and watering troughs.

Can you see the waterfalls of Nepi?

Yes. The Cavaterra waterfall is at the edge of the village and very convenient. The Picchio waterfall and the other drops require the valley-floor trails, with suitable shoes and caution after rain.

Is Nepi suitable for children?

Yes, for the Rocca and the outdoor walks. The catacomb should be judged case by case. The center is on a slope, so a baby carrier is better than a stroller.

When is the Palio dei Borgia held in Nepi?

Usually in the first three weeks of June, with a horse joust, an archery tournament and a historical parade that re-enacts 1499. The exact dates change every year.

What do you eat in Nepi?

Pork cured meats such as the salame cotto and the scapicollata, pecorino romano, the shepherds' acquacotta and seasonal sweets such as the Christmas fagottelli and the fave dei morti.

What can you see near Nepi in a day?

Civita Castellana, Castel Sant'Elia, Sutri and Calcata are a short distance away on the same Via Amerina. A little farther on are Caprarola, Ronciglione, Lake Vico and Viterbo.

Is Nepi accessible to people with mobility difficulties?

The historic center is on a slope and the catacomb is a hypogeum with changes in level and uneven ground, so it is partly not accessible. For the museum and the routes that are possible, it's best to ask in advance at 0761 570604.

Is there an information office in Nepi?

The main reference is the Museo Civico at Via Falisca 31, which manages the visits and provides information. Telephone 0761 570604, email museo@comune.nepi.vt.it.

If I had to say in one line why Nepi is worth the trip, I'd say it's one of those villages where geology and history speak the same language: the tuff that gave the gorges, the gorges that gave the fortress, the fortress that attracted the Borgias, and the water that runs under everything and even gives the town its name. Go there slowly, call ahead for the hours, go down into the crypt of the Duomo and into the catacomb, and treat yourself to the sunset over the aqueduct. You'll go home convinced that the 50 kilometers from Rome are the best spent of your week in the Tuscia.

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

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