Olevano Romano (RM)

Olevano Romano is in the province of Rome, on the spur of Monte Celeste, at the edge of the Prenestini-Lepini-Ernici mountain complex, about 50 kilometers east of the capital. By car from Rome you take the Autostrada del Sole A1 and exit at Valmontone or Colleferro, then climb on the provincial road toward the village: from the toll gate to the square it is another 20 minutes or so of curves among the vineyards. Those without a car take the Cotral bus from the Ponte Mammolo metro B station, with direct runs to the town, or combine the FL6 regional train to Cassino as far as Zagarolo or Valmontone and from there the bus connection. The terminus in town is on Via Koch, the street named after the painter who made Olevano his second homeland. There is no entrance ticket to the village: you walk freely through the alleys, and the only fees concern the civic museum and the wineries that open their doors by reservation.

The town has a little over 6,000 inhabitants and lives on two economies that have been intertwined here for two centuries: Cesanese wine, a deep red that has its controlled designation of origin, and the memory of the northern European painters who came to Olevano to look for the light of Lazio. It is a village of the Monti Prenestini, not an open-air museum built for tourists: the Rocca dei Colonna, the polygonal walls of the Aequi, the Serpentara oak grove bought by German artists in the 19th century are real things, still in their place, and should be seen on foot and unhurried. This guide lines them up one by one, with hours, addresses and a few firm opinions.

To place Olevano within the rest of the area it is best to keep an eye on the page of the Lepini Mountains and that of the nearby villages: from here, in half a day, you can reach Genazzano, Palestrina and Subiaco.

Where Olevano Romano Is and How to Get There

Olevano Romano stands where the Monti Prenestini slope down toward the upper Sacco Valley, at a point that the ancients chose for defense and the painters for the panorama. The built-up area climbs the flank of Monte Celeste, and the tower of the old fortress is the sign you spot from afar, arriving from the plain. The municipal territory borders Bellegra, Genazzano, Roiate, Paliano and Serrone, and this hinge position between the province of Rome and Ciociaria explains well why Olevano has always had one foot in the Roman world and one in the Hernican and Prenestine one.

By Car to Olevano Romano

The most convenient route from Rome is the Autostrada del Sole. Those who exit at Valmontone then take the provincial roads that climb toward the town, those who prefer Colleferro take provincial road 21: in both cases it is about 40 minutes from the toll gate, to which you must add the time to reach the motorway. Alternatively you go up along Via Casilina until joining the regional road to Fiuggi, or along Via Prenestina. From the north, from L'Aquila and Abruzzo, you travel on the A24 exiting at Carsoli-Oricola and then descending toward Subiaco. Parking in town is in the lower part, below the historic center: cars stay there and the visit continues on foot, because the medieval alleys climb steeply and are not made for traffic.

By Public Transport to Olevano Romano

The connection with Rome is handled by Cotral, the regional transport company of Lazio. Direct runs leave from the metro B terminal of Ponte Mammolo and arrive at the terminus on Via Koch in town. The schedules change between weekdays and holidays and should be checked on the Cotral site before setting out, because on weekends runs thin out. Those arriving by train get off the regional trains on the line to Cassino at Zagarolo or at Valmontone and continue with the bus connection. It is a trip that takes a bit of planning, but it has the advantage of leaving you free to taste the Cesanese in the cellar with no driving worries.

The Aequian Origins of Olevano Romano

Before the Colonna, before Rome, this mountain belonged to the Aequi. The Italic people of Osco-Umbrian stock who held the heights between the Sacco Valley and the Aniene left at Olevano their most imposing mark: the polygonal walls that still support the lower part of the historic center. They are the great blocks of limestone, roughly squared and fitted without mortar, that scholars place in the pre-Roman age and tie to the system of hilltop fortifications, the oppida, with which the Aequi controlled the passes. The precise dating remains debated, but the building technique and the position leave few doubts about the defensive nature of the original settlement.

With the defeat of the Aequi and the Romanization of the territory, between the late Republic and the imperial age, the landscape changed face. Rustic villas, farms that exploited the fertile soils of the slopes, took the place of the defensive fortresses. Olevano thus entered Rome's orbit without ever entirely losing its look of a mountain town: the cyclopean walls stayed in place, and on top of them, centuries later, the medieval village was built. Whoever walks along the base of the built-up area of Olevano Romano touches this stratification by hand, from the blocks of the Aequi to the houses that rest on them.

The Roman Villa of Lanetto

Of the Roman phase there remain the traces of a rustic villa in the locality of Lanetto, just outside the center. It is not a monumental site for mass tourism, but the finds that have emerged from it tell of an inhabited and cultured territory: in the 1980s a bust of Attis and a herm of Apollo datable to the second century AD were found there, testimony of the life and cults that animated these countrysides in the imperial age. They are the kind of discoveries that explain why Olevano is not simply a medieval village, but a place with a history as long as that of the agro romano.

The Statutes of Olevano Romano

In 1364, when the fief had passed for a period to the Commune of Rome, the community of Olevano gave itself its own body of laws: the Statuta Olibani. They were about 140 chapters that regulated the civil, criminal and administrative life of the town, from penalties for damage to the countryside to weights and measures to obligations toward the community. They were then reformed over the centuries, in the 15th and 16th centuries. Documents like these are precious because they photograph the daily life of a Lazio village in the late Middle Ages better than any chronicle, and they tell of a community that, even under the rule of great houses, knew how to give itself rules of its own.

A Curiosity About Olevano Romano (RM)

The curiosity almost nobody knows concerns a wood. North of the town extends the Serpentara, an oak grove of ancient holm oaks and downy oaks that owes its name to the snakes that once lived in it. It wouldn't be anything special, a wood among many, if it weren't that in 1873 that oak grove risked being razed to the ground: timber was needed to make railroad ties, and the grove was about to go under the axes. What saved it was an international collection. A group of German and Italian artists, in love with those twisted trunks they had painted and drawn for decades, raised the money needed and bought the wood to withdraw it from felling. It is one of the very first documented cases in Europe of a landscape bought not to exploit it, but to preserve it intact as a natural work of art.

The story did not end there. At the beginning of the 20th century the sculptor Heinrich Gerhardt, originally from Kassel and living in Rome, had a small mountain refuge built inside the Serpentara, and in 1914 donated it to the Academy of Arts in Berlin. Since then that patch of oaks and the house that guards it have been German property on Lazio soil, managed today by the Accademia Tedesca Roma Villa Massimo. In 2023 the Serpentara marked 150 years since that collection: a wood that is at once a monument to the art of landscape and one of the oldest reserves born from the will of painters. Walking into it today means crossing the same views that ended up on the canvases of the galleries of Berlin and the Hermitage.

Something Nobody Tells You About Olevano Romano (RM)

In the church of San Rocco, inside the historic center, a German boy who died at 22 is buried. His name was Franz Theobald Horny, he had arrived in Rome barely 18 and came to Olevano looking for good air when tuberculosis began to consume him. He was the favorite pupil of Joseph Anton Koch, the Tyrolean master who made Olevano the moral capital of Nordic landscape painting. Horny died in 1824, very young, leaving drawings of a finesse that still today make him considered one of the purest and most wasted talents of German Romanticism. The gravestone is there, inside San Rocco, and very few of the visitors who walk past the church know they have beside them the tomb of a painter whom in Berlin and Weimar they study in textbooks.

This is the secret of Olevano that the brochures don't tell: the town was not simply painted by foreigners, it welcomed them and sometimes buried them. Private houses opened their doors to the outsiders of the Grand Tour, and names that today fill European galleries slept, ate and died among these alleys. Walking through the historic center you don't see plaques at every corner, but almost every view that looks ordinary was in fact the subject of a canvas kept hundreds of kilometers from here. Olevano is a town that exported its image all over Europe while remaining, at home, almost anonymous.

The Advice I Give You for Visiting Olevano Romano (RM)

The advice is to come on a Saturday or Sunday and to treat Olevano as a whole day, not a stop. The civic museum opens on weekends in the afternoon too, the wineries receive by appointment, and the best light for the landscape, the one the painters looked for, is that of the late afternoon, when the raking sun lights up the oaks and the roofs. If you arrive in the morning, devote the first hours to the climb inside the historic center, up to the tower, when the air is still cool and the alleys in shade. Have lunch at a trattoria in town, where the Cesanese is drunk at the source. Leave the afternoon to the Serpentara and the parks.

A mistake I often see is dismissing Olevano in an hour, looking only at the square and leaving again. It is a town that gives itself to those who walk uphill and raise their eyes: the reward comes at the top, from the tower, with the Upper Sacco Valley spread wide beneath your feet. Another practical piece of advice: phone the museum before leaving, because it has happened that it closed for restoration work, and there is nothing worse than climbing all the way up here to find the rooms barred. Bring comfortable shoes with a sole that grips, because the paving is ancient and in some stretches shiny and slippery. And if you can choose the season, late August is the moment of the Cesanese in celebration, with the food festival filling the streets.

The Historic Center of Olevano Romano, Alley by Alley

The visit to the historic center of Olevano Romano is a continuous climb, from the lower part of the town up to the limestone spur to which the tower clings. You begin from the remains of the polygonal walls, pass under an ancient gate and enter a maze of medieval alleys that the centuries have layered without ever erasing completely. It is best tackled on foot and unhurried, because every turn opens a different view and the painters, not wrongly, found endless framings here.

The Polygonal Walls and Gates of Olevano Romano

The oldest thing in Olevano is the walls in polygonal masonry that form the base of the medieval village. They are large blocks of local stone, roughly squared and fitted together without mortar, in a technique that archaeologists call precisely polygonal or cyclopean. The dating is uncertain, but the blocks go back to an age before the Romanization of the territory, and tradition attributes them to the Aequi, the Italic people who held these mountains before Rome. Walking along the lower part of the center you touch these enormous boulders, which still support the houses built on top centuries and centuries later. From the walls you enter the village through gates that bear ancient names, the Porta del Sole among the main ones, narrow openings from which the road climbs upward.

The Church of Santa Margherita and the Body of San Vittore

Climbing from the gates through the alleys you reach the church of Santa Margherita, the parish church dedicated to the patron saint of the town. Its origins go back to the 9th century, and over the centuries it has been restored and enlarged several times. It has a two-aisle structure and a coffered ceiling, square and rectangular, decorated with gilded friezes that repay the raising of the head. Beneath the altar is kept the body of San Vittore, the martyr venerated by the people of Olevano. The patron festival of Santa Margherita, in July, remains one of the most heartfelt events in the town's calendar, with the procession that runs through the alleys of the center.

The Little Church of Santa Maria di Corte and Its Frescoes

Climbing further toward the highest and oldest core of the historic center you arrive at the little church of Santa Maria di Corte, the small church that Oddone Colonna had built in the first half of the 14th century, when the Colonna were lords of Olevano. Its greatest merit is the frescoes of the apse, behind the high altar: medieval painting surviving next to the remains of feudal power, the baronial palace and the tower. It is a secluded corner, of the kind that those who visit in a rush don't even find, and it is worth the detour precisely for the contrast between the bare stone and the colors of the apse.

The Church of San Rocco and Horny's Tomb

Through another gate of the center you reach the square of San Rocco, where the church of the same name stands. It has a single nave, with an exposed-truss ceiling that gives it a simple, severe air. Here, as said, rest the remains of the German painter Franz Theobald Horny, Koch's pupil who died at 22: his presence makes this modest church one of the places dearest to the memory of the artists' colony. San Rocco was also the parish of don Umberto Carletti, the priest-bricklayer who is almost a legend in Olevano, and whose story is worth telling further on.

The Sanctuary of the Santissima Annunziata

In the lower part of the historic center, detached from the rest of the built-up area and facing a stone-paved square, is the Sanctuary of the Santissima Annunziata. Its secluded position, off the main climb, makes it a place for pausing and reflection, and the paved square in front of the facade is one of the loveliest spaces in town to stop for a moment. Together with Santa Margherita, Santa Maria di Corte and San Rocco it makes up the quartet of Olevano's historic churches, each tied to a different phase of the life of the village.

The Colonna Rocca and Tower at Olevano Romano

The highest point of the historic center is occupied by the remains of the castle, the Rocca that the Colonna built on the high limestone spur to defend the village. Of the complex there remain above all the tower, which still dominates the town's profile, and the baronial palace, today privately owned. The construction of the castle dates to the 13th century, when Olevano became a castrum and the Colonna took control of it. Climbing to the tower is the reward of the visit: from up there the view is a 360-degree sweep of the horizon.

From the viewpoint of the tower, to the south you make out the Monti Lepini, the Sacco Valley and, on clear days, in the distance the start of the Pontine plain. To the west open the Monti Prenestini and the upper Sacco Valley. To the north stand out the Monti Simbruini. To the east rises Monte Scalambra. It is the panorama that explains on its own why the town always had strategic value and why painters climbed up here with easel and notebook. I recommend saving this lookout for the last part of the climb, when you already have the breath to enjoy the view with nothing else to do but look. To orient yourself toward the east and the nearby villages keep in mind the pages of the Monti Simbruini and of Subiaco, which you glimpse from here.

The Museo Civico d'Arte of Olevano Romano at Villa de Pisa

Just outside the center, in the 18th-century Villa de Pisa at Viale Vittorio Veneto 25, is the Museo Civico d'Arte of Olevano Romano, also known as the Study Center on European Landscape Painting. It is the place where the town's artistic vocation becomes a collection: gathered here, according to the Associazione Amici del Museo that looks after it, are over 2,000 works among paintings, engravings and drawings, put together over about 30 years of donations and acquisitions. Oils, watercolors, sketches and sculptures depicting the village and its landscape, the visual repertoire of two centuries of painters who worked here.

Joseph Anton Koch's Views and the Hindorf Donation

The showpiece of the collection is the series of the Vedute romane by Joseph Anton Koch, 20 engravings made by the Tyrolean master in 1810. The original plates of those engravings were donated to the museum in 1999 by the artist's heirs, a return home after almost two centuries. Alongside Koch, the museum holds the donation of the painter Heinz Hindorf and a collection of 19th- and 20th-century drawings and screen prints. The Museo Civico d'Arte of Olevano Romano is part of the museum network of Lazio and of the Museum Grandtour system, and its ambition, declared from the name, goes beyond Olevano and embraces the entire European season of landscape painting.

Hours and Visiting the Museo Civico d'Arte

The museum usually opens Wednesday to Friday in the morning, from 9:00 to 13:00, and Saturday and Sunday both morning and afternoon, roughly from 9:00 to 13:00 and from 15:30 to 19:00. On weekends booking is recommended, and the museum's phone contact is the surest way to verify opening, because the building has been affected by renovation work that temporarily suspended visits. Before planning the climb to Olevano specifically for the museum, a phone call to the Municipality or to the Associazione Amici del Museo avoids nasty surprises. Entry to the rooms is the main reason it is worth choosing the weekend for the visit.

The Cesanese Wine of Olevano Romano

Olevano Romano gives its name to one of the historic denominations of Lazio, the Cesanese di Olevano Romano. The DOC was recognized in 1973, by decree of the President of the Republic of May of that year, and its production zone includes the territories of Olevano Romano and Genazzano. The wine comes from the Cesanese grape, in its two varieties, Cesanese di Affile and Cesanese comune, native red grapes of this belt of hills between the province of Rome and Ciociaria. It is a red with character, which the production code declines in several types, from dry to semi-sweet and sweet, up to the Superiore and the Riserva versions.

The Terra del Cesanese Wine Road

Around the Cesanese revolves the Strada del Vino Terra del Cesanese of Olevano Romano, an itinerary marked by signs along which you meet vineyards, wineries of single and associated producers, agri-food and craft products of the territory. It is not only a wine route: it is conceived as a tool to promote quality food-and-wine tourism that ties wine to the landscape, history and life of the town. Many wineries receive visitors by appointment, and a Cesanese tasting accompanied by local cheeses and cured meats is an excellent way to end the day. If wine is the reason for your trip, also factor in the pages of Genazzano, the other municipality of the denomination, and of Fiuggi, a little further south.

The Painters' Trail and Landscape Painting at Olevano Romano

To really understand Olevano you need to understand why the northern painters came here in droves. Between the late 18th and late 19th centuries, the journey to Italy was the obligatory school of every European artist, and the Roman countryside was its great open-air laboratory. Olevano offered what landscape painting needed: rocks, twisted oaks, a sharp light that sculpted forms, and a lively relief that lent itself to compositions. It was not the tamed scenic beauty of gardens, but a strong, almost heroic nature, which the artists painted from life, with the easel planted among the stones.

From that season was born the idea, now promoted by the town, of a painters' trail: the views and vantage points from which the Romantic masters portrayed the village and the Serpentara. Walking through Olevano with this awareness changes the way you look. You realize that the framing of the tower on the spur, the profile of the oaks against the sky, the valley opening beneath the town are not just any views: they are compositions that painters like Koch and Corot fixed on canvas and that are today kept in the great European galleries. It is a form of cultured tourism, which joins the stroll to the history of art, and which makes Olevano Romano a unique place in the Lazio landscape.

The Serpentara and the Parks of Olevano Romano

The vocation for greenery is a constant of Olevano: parks and gardens penetrate the built fabric and divide it, and around the town stretch woods that are part of its identity. The most famous remains the Serpentara, the oak grove saved by the artists in 1873, which today belongs to the Academy of Arts in Berlin and hosts, in the refuge built by Heinrich Gerhardt and restored in 2016 and 2017, the German fellows who stay there for three months. The wood can be reached from the center with a walk, and it is there that you breathe the same atmosphere that seduced the Romantics.

The Acqua Santa Park

Not far, toward the Serpentara, you meet the Acqua Santa Park, tied to an ancient spring and dear to both the people of Olevano and outsiders since the beginning of the 19th century. It was one of the favorite destinations of foreign painters and, later, a classic day trip out of town for Romans. It was don Umberto Carletti, the parish priest of San Rocco, who worked so that the park would enter among the properties of the parish, in order to protect it. Today it remains a shady, cool place to stop, ideal for the afternoon.

Casa Baldi and Villa Serpentara

Near the Serpentara stands Casa Baldi, which was the summer residence of Cardinal Scipione Borghese and became, in the 19th century, one of the first gathering places of northern painters in search of lodging and landscape. Casa Baldi and Villa Serpentara, both tied to the German cultural presence, are still today reference points of the dense network of relations between Olevano and Germany, and host artists and fellows sent by the Berlin academies. They are concrete proof that the bond born two centuries ago was never broken: the town continues to receive guests of the German art academy, as it did when Koch and Corot planted their easels here.

Alexander Kanoldt and the New Objectivity at Olevano Romano

The story of painting at Olevano does not stop with the Romantics of the 19th century. In the 1920s Alexander Kanoldt arrived here, one of the protagonists of the New Objectivity, the German movement that reacted against the excesses of Expressionism by returning to a clear, controlled, almost metaphysical form. Kanoldt painted some views of Olevano that are among the most interesting testimonies of how the same landscape could speak to such different generations of artists. Where the Romantics had sought the emotion and the sublime of nature, Kanoldt found the geometric structure of the village, the volumes of the overlapping houses, the sharpness of the lines.

It is a chapter rarely cited, but it says a lot: Olevano was not a passing fashion of a single artistic season, it was a subject that crossed more than a century of European painting history, reinvented each time according to the sensibility of whoever looked at it. From the Romantic light of Koch to the rigorous form of Kanoldt, the town has kept offering painters exactly what they needed. And this, in the end, is the thread that holds together the whole artistic story of Olevano Romano: a place that never stops getting itself painted.

Another Well-Known Fact, Yet Rarely Cited

It is always said that Olevano was the town of the German painters, and many people know this. What is cited less is that Olevano was not an occasional discovery, but the center of a real system: in the 19th century the village hosted, over the decades, more than 1,000 international artists, and to receive them it was the private houses of the town that opened up, not hotels or structures designed for tourism. The people of Olevano rented rooms, gave food, made room for the easel. An economy of artistic hospitality was created that kept the town tied to northern Europe for a whole century, long before the modern idea of an artists' residency existed.

The even less known fact is that this bond is not a postcard memory: it is alive. The Serpentara and Casa Baldi are still German property and German seats, managed by the Berlin Academy and by the Accademia Tedesca Roma Villa Massimo, and every year fellows arrive at Olevano who stay for months, exactly as 200 years ago. Few places in Italy can claim a similar continuity between their 19th-century cultural history and their present life. Olevano does not celebrate the painters of the past: it keeps hosting new ones.

The Right Photo to Take at Olevano Romano (RM)

The photograph that takes Olevano home is not the alley one, however lovely, but that of the landscape seen from above. Climb up to the tower of the Rocca in late afternoon, when the sun sets toward the west and lights the Sacco Valley from the side: from up there the village climbing the spur, the oaks of the Serpentara in the background and the profiles of the Monti Lepini and Simbruini on the horizon make up the framing the Romantic painters had been looking for two centuries ago. It is literally the same view that ended up on the canvases of Koch and Corot: photographing it today means redoing, with the camera, the gesture they made with the brush.

If you want the photo of the whole village, instead, go down to the lower part and look for one of the viewpoints that face the town: from there Olevano is seen entire, with the tower on top and the houses stepping down beneath. The early morning light renders the pale stone well. But the photograph I really recommend is the one inside the Serpentara: the twisted trunks of the ancient holm oaks, backlit, give back the image that made this town famous across half of Europe. You don't need a special lens, you need the patience to wait for the right light, like the artists who came here for just that.

Some Important Events That Happened Here in History

The first event that gives Olevano a place in the documents is from 1232: in that year a sale deed names Oddone Colonna as lord of Olevano and uses for the first time the term castrum to indicate the fortified village. It is the birth certificate of medieval Olevano, that of the Rocca and the tower. From there the town's history is a passing from hand to hand among the great houses: after the Colonna the fief passed to the Commune of Rome, which in 1364 gave the community its Statutes, the Statuta Olibani, a body of civil, criminal and administrative rules later reformed in the following centuries. The Orsini followed, who held control by grant of Pope Boniface IX, and finally the Borghese, down to Camillo, the last lord.

The event the people of Olevano are proudest of, however, is from 1849, and concerns the Roman Republic. When Rome was besieged, a column of men from Olevano broke through the enemy lines to bring supplies into the city. Garibaldi himself reviewed them, and described them in words that have remained famous: barefoot, dirty, ragged men, but armed with certain knives. For that gesture the Senate of the Roman Republic granted Olevano the right to display the insignia of Rome, the SPQR, which still appears today in the municipal coat of arms next to the three hills topped by the olive plant. A century later, during World War II, don Umberto Carletti, parish priest of San Rocco, supplied false documents to persecuted Jews, building for them new identities and the concrete possibility of escaping the Nazi roundups: a less known but no less important chapter of the town's history.

Don Umberto Carletti, the Bricklayer with Four Degrees

If there is one figure remembered in Olevano more than any other, it is don Umberto Carletti. He was born in town on February 20, 1905 and studied in the most demanding seminaries and universities, from the Bishop's Seminary of Palestrina to the Collegio Leoniano of Anagni, from the Angelicum of Rome to the Regia Università, earning licentiates and degrees in philosophy, theology and letters. He was ordained a priest in 1930 and from 1933 became parish priest of San Rocco, the church that would mark his life.

His was not a sacristy parish. Don Umberto redid the roof and the stairway of the church, reorganized the ancient confraternity of San Rocco bringing it to over 150 members, even bought a radio set to keep the community together with evenings marked by catechism, the radio news and commentary on the day's events. In the postwar period he threw himself into concrete work: he had a sports field built putting in his own land and his own arms, started work-site schools to teach young people the building trade, worked to bring the Acqua Santa park among the properties of the parish and to open in town a section of the scientific high school, the first detached from the Liceo Spallanzani of Tivoli, inaugurated on October 1, 1964. He taught Latin and religion there, a feared and loved vice principal who personally watched over the students' entrance. He died on April 16, 1988. The people of Olevano remember him with a phrase worth a portrait: a bricklayer with four degrees, always with a shovel in hand, cassock hitched up and a cigarette butt in his mouth. To understand his Tivoli, you can have a look at the page of Tivoli, where he studied and taught the high school that he brought to Olevano.

Who Passed Through Olevano Romano (RM)

The list of names that passed through Olevano Romano is, for a town of 6,000 souls, disproportionate. The first is Joseph Anton Koch, the Tyrolean painter who found his muse in Olevano and who married a local woman, Cassandra Ranaldi: he made the village the obligatory destination of northern landscape painters, and the street of the terminus is named after him. Behind Koch came a crowd: over the 19th century more than 1,000 international painters are counted, German, Danish, English, French and from half of Europe, who chose Olevano as a stop on their journey in Italy, that Grand Tour considered indispensable for learning to render light, color and a nature made of rocks and oaks.

Among the most famous stands out the Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, who immortalized the Olevano countryside in paintings now kept in the great museums, and then Friedrich von Olivier, and Franz Theobald Horny, who died here at 22 and is buried in San Rocco. In the 20th century Alexander Kanoldt also arrived, who in the 1920s painted some views of the town and is remembered as one of the protagonists of the New Objectivity, the German movement that reacted to Expressionism with a return to clear form. Alongside the painters, feudal history brought to Olevano families that marked Rome: the Colonna, the Orsini, and finally the Borghese, with Camillo Borghese, husband of Paolina Bonaparte and brother-in-law of Napoleon, last lord of the fief.

The Coat of Arms of Olevano Romano

The town's coat of arms tells in one image the soul of the place. It shows three hills, and on the central one rises an olive plant, the tree that probably gives Olevano its very name and that marks a territory always devoted to the land and its crops. Beside it appears the acronym SPQR, the insignia of the Senate and People of Rome, which to a mountain town 50 kilometers from the capital may seem out of place. They are not: they are a granted honor.

The right to display the SPQR was granted to Olevano by the Senate of the Roman Republic in 1849, in recognition of an act of courage. During the siege of Rome, a column of men from Olevano broke through the enemy lines to bring supplies into the city. It is from that episode, and from the words with which Garibaldi described those men, that the symbolic bond is born between the small Prenestine village and great Republican Rome. A coat of arms, in short, that is not a simple heraldic ornament but the synthesis of two centuries of history: the agricultural vocation and civic pride.

Where to Eat and Drink Cesanese at Olevano Romano

A visit to Olevano isn't complete without a stop at the table. Local cooking is the hearty kind of the villages of the Monti Prenestini: homemade pasta, meats, cheeses and cured meats of the territory, and in June the Sagra degli gnocchi celebrates one of the signature dishes. The natural companion of this table is the Cesanese, the house red, which in the town's trattorias is drunk at the source, often loose and at honest prices. Many farms on the Strada del Vino Terra del Cesanese receive visitors for tastings by reservation, and tasting the wine directly in the cellar, from the producer, is an experience worth the trip.

It is best to plan lunch as part of the visit, not as an interval. Book at a trattoria in the center or at a farm in the surroundings, let yourself be advised on pairing the Cesanese with local cheeses, and don't hurry. If you happen to be here in late August, the Sagra del Vino Cesanese turns the whole town into one big open-air table. For those who want to stay overnight, the area offers agriturismi and lodgings among the vineyards, also handy as a base for exploring the nearby villages.

Accessibility at Olevano Romano

It must be said frankly: the historic center of Olevano is not easy for those with mobility difficulties. It is a medieval village built vertically on a spur of rock, with steep alleys, staircases and ancient paving, in some stretches uneven or slippery. Climbing to the tower requires good legs, and strollers struggle on the slopes. Those with walking problems can still enjoy the lower part of the town, the parks and the viewpoints reachable by car, but the climb to the upper core remains demanding.

For the Museo Civico d'Arte and for information on the accessibility of individual facilities it is best to contact the Municipality or the Associazione Amici del Museo in advance, who can indicate routes and solutions. Parks like the Acqua Santa offer flatter, shadier spaces, suitable for a quieter visit. In general, Olevano Romano rewards those who walk, and should be approached by factoring in the climb as part of the experience.

Olevano Romano with Children

Olevano is a town children can appreciate, as long as you dose the climb. The historic center is all on a slope and on ancient paving, not well suited to strollers, but the older ones have fun discovering the gates, the tower and the alleys as if they were a labyrinth. The winning card, with children, is the parks: the Acqua Santa Park and the green spaces around the town offer shade, lawns and the chance to run. The Serpentara, with its fairy-tale oaks, has a charm that strikes the little ones too. Factor in frequent stops and bring water, because uphill and in summer the heat is felt.

What to See Around Olevano Romano

Olevano is an excellent base camp for exploring a rich and little-trodden corner of Lazio. A few kilometers away is Genazzano, the other municipality of the Cesanese, with its Colonna castle and the sanctuary of the Madonna del Buon Consiglio. A little further, Subiaco keeps the Benedictine monasteries carved in the rock, among the most extraordinary places of Christendom. Toward the west, Palestrina is dominated by the grandiose Sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia and keeps in its archaeological museum the famous Nile mosaic. Further south you descend into Ciociaria, toward Anagni, the city of the popes with its cathedral and frescoed crypt, and toward Fiuggi with its thermal waters.

Those with time can extend to Tivoli, with its World Heritage villas, or venture into the Monti Simbruini and the Monti Lepini for trekking and nature. Here are some useful stops for building the itinerary around Olevano: the archaeological museum of Palestrina, Hadrian's villa at Palestrina, Anagni, the museum of the cathedral of Anagni and the selva of Genazzano. The whole area falls within the district of the Castelli Romani and the Prenestini, a territory that deserves more than one outing.

Events, Food Festivals and Traditions of Olevano Romano

Olevano's calendar revolves around wine and the seasons. The main event is the Sagra del Vino Cesanese di Olevano Romano, at the end of August, when the streets of the center fill with stalls and glasses. At the beginning of August comes Calici di Stelle, the night of tastings under the sky, and in June Vinointorno, the national showcase devoted to quality wine and food. The patron festival of Santa Margherita falls in July, with the procession of the patron saint. In autumn, in November, comes the Sagra dell'Olio d'Oliva e del Vino Novello, while in June there is the Sagra degli gnocchi, and in the Acqua Santa Park the Radiolevano Eco Fest takes place.

In October, the Olevano Romano Open Day opens palaces, villas, archaeological sites and museums free of charge, with workshops and exhibitions, as part of the larger festival day of the Castelli Romani and Prenestini. In summer, the Estate Olevanese fills the town with evenings and events, and in December, Natale a Olevano Romano lights up the historic center. For shopping, the weekly market is held every Monday, and on the third Sunday of the month the farmers' market with the Slow Food label returns, a chance to take home local products straight from the producers.

A One-Day Itinerary in Olevano Romano

If you have only one day, here is how to organize it. Arrive in the morning and leave the car in the parking lot in the lower part of town. Start with the polygonal walls, to get the measure of the town's oldest history, then climb into the center through the ancient gates. Spend the morning on the slow climb through the alleys: the church of Santa Margherita with the body of San Vittore, the little church of Santa Maria di Corte with its frescoes, the church of San Rocco where Horny lies, and finally the tower of the Rocca, from which you can take in the whole valley at a glance. It's the best time of day, with the air still cool and the alleys in shade.

At midday, sit down to eat: a trattoria in the center, local cooking and a glass of Cesanese. In the afternoon, if it's Saturday or Sunday, go into the Museo Civico d'Arte at Villa de Pisa to see Koch's engravings and the collection of the landscape painters. Otherwise head straight for the Serpentara and the Parco dell'Acqua Santa, where you can spend the hottest hours in the shade of the oaks. Close the day with a tasting at a winery on the Strada del Vino, booked in advance, and head home with a few bottles of Cesanese in the trunk. It's a full day, but it's the right way to do justice to Olevano Romano.

When to Go to Olevano Romano

Olevano has a season for every reason to travel. Spring is perhaps the most balanced time: the days get longer, the countryside is green, the Serpentara puts out new leaves and the heat is not yet a problem for the climb to the historic center. Summer is the season of festivals and wine, peaking in late August when the Sagra del Cesanese fills the streets. The flip side is the heat, which in the middle hours makes the climb through the alleys tiring, so it's best to move early in the morning or in the late afternoon.

Autumn is the season I prefer. It's the time of the grape harvest and of the olive oil and new wine festivals, the light turns golden and the woods change color, giving the camera exactly the atmospheres the painters came here to find. Winter is quieter, the town empties of visitors and on clear days the view from the tower reaches far, to the snowy peaks of the Simbruini. Natale a Olevano Romano lights up the center. In every season, my advice is still to choose the weekend, when the museum is also open in the afternoon and the wineries are more willing to receive visitors.

Quick Questions About Olevano Romano (RM)

Where is Olevano Romano?

Olevano Romano is in the province of Rome, on Monte Celeste, on the edge of the Monti Prenestini and the upper Valle del Sacco, about 50 kilometers east of Rome, on the border between the Roman territory and Ciociaria.

How do you get to Olevano Romano from Rome?

By car, take the Autostrada del Sole and exit at Valmontone or Colleferro, then continue on the provincial roads. By public transport there are direct Cotral buses from the Ponte Mammolo metro B terminal to the terminus on Via Koch in town. Alternatively, take the regional train to Cassino as far as Zagarolo or Valmontone and connect with a bus.

How much time do you need to visit Olevano Romano?

For the historic center, the tower and a walk, half a day is enough, but if you also want the museum, the Serpentara and a Cesanese tasting, you should give Olevano Romano the whole day.

Do you pay a ticket to enter Olevano Romano?

No, the village can be visited freely and at no cost. The only fees are for admission to the Museo Civico d'Arte and any tastings in the wineries.

When is the Museo Civico d'Arte of Olevano Romano open?

Usually Wednesday to Friday in the morning, and Saturday and Sunday morning and afternoon, with a reservation recommended on weekends. Because the building has been affected by renovation work, it's best to check the opening by phone before you climb up.

What wine is produced in Olevano Romano?

The signature wine is Cesanese di Olevano Romano DOC, a red made from the Cesanese di Affile and Cesanese comune grapes, with a denomination recognized in 1973 and a production zone that includes Olevano Romano and Genazzano.

What is the Serpentara of Olevano Romano?

It's an oak grove north of the town, saved from felling in 1873 thanks to a collection by German and Italian artists. Today it belongs to the Berlin Academy of the Arts and hosts German scholarship holders in the lodge built in the early 1900s.

Why is Olevano Romano famous for its painters?

Because in the 19th century it was the destination of more than a thousand landscape painters, mostly German and Scandinavian, who painted its landscape during their journey through Italy. Among them were Joseph Anton Koch, Camille Corot and Franz Theobald Horny.

Who is buried in the Church of San Rocco in Olevano Romano?

In the church of San Rocco lies Franz Theobald Horny, a German painter and pupil of Joseph Anton Koch, who died in Olevano at the age of 22 in 1824.

Is Olevano Romano suitable for children?

Yes, with a few precautions. The historic center is steep and on old paving, not very practical with strollers, but the parks and the Serpentara offer green spaces where children can run and play.

Can you visit the tower of the Rocca of Olevano Romano?

The tower and the remains of the Colonna castle dominate the highest point of the historic center and give the best view over the valley. The adjoining baronial palace is privately owned.

When should you go to Olevano Romano?

The weekend is the best time, because the museum is also open in the afternoon. Late August, with the Sagra del Cesanese, is the liveliest season. Late afternoon offers the best light for the landscape.

What is there to see around Olevano Romano?

Nearby there are Genazzano, Subiaco with its Benedictine monasteries, Palestrina with the sanctuary of Fortuna, Anagni the city of the popes and Fiuggi with its spas, as well as the Monti Simbruini and Lepini.

How many inhabitants does Olevano Romano have?

The municipality has just over 6,000 inhabitants and is one of the villages of the Monti Prenestini in the province of Rome.

Is there good food and drink in Olevano Romano?

Yes. The town's trattorias serve local cooking with Cesanese, and many wineries receive visitors for tastings by reservation along the Strada del Vino Terra del Cesanese.

What is the most important festival in Olevano Romano?

The patron saint's festival of Santa Margherita, in July, and the Sagra del Vino Cesanese, in late August, are the two most heartfelt events of the year.

Why is the Serpentara of Olevano Romano German?

Because in 1873 a group of German and Italian artists raised the funds to buy the woods and save them from felling, and in the early 1900s the lodge built inside was donated to the Berlin Academy of the Arts. Today it is run by the Accademia Tedesca Roma Villa Massimo.

What is kept in the Museum of Olevano Romano?

Over 2,000 works including paintings, engravings and drawings collected by the Associazione Amici del Museo, among them the 20 engravings of Joseph Anton Koch's Vedute romane, whose original plates were donated in 1999, and the donation of the painter Heinz Hindorf.

Who were the Aequi of Olevano Romano?

The Aequi were the Italic people of Osco-Umbrian stock who, before Rome, held these mountains and built the polygonal walls that still support the lower part of the historic center.

Why is the SPQR sign on the coat of arms of Olevano Romano?

Because in 1849 the Senate of the Roman Republic granted Olevano the right to display the insignia of Rome, in recognition of the courage of the people of Olevano who broke the siege of the city to bring in supplies.

The Final Verdict on Olevano Romano

Olevano is one of those towns that repay you in proportion to what you put in. Whoever climbs, walks, books the museum and sits down to drink a glass of Cesanese slowly leaves with the feeling of having understood a piece of Lazio that the tourist circuits ignore. Whoever rushes through sees only a village on a slope like many others. The advice stays the same: treat it as a full day, arrive with time to wait for the afternoon light on the tower, and don't leave without going into the Serpentara. It's there, among the oaks that a group of painters bought two centuries ago so as not to see them cut down, that you understand why half of artistic Europe fell in love with this corner of the mountains.

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

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