Latium: The Villages of the Ancestors in the Aniene Valley

Back to the Roots: Living the Past in the Village of Your Ancestors

Welcome to the village of your ancestors, where every stone tells a story and every narrow street hides ancient family memories. Here, you will not only be a tourist, but a member of the community, warmly welcomed by the local authorities and relatives who are waiting for you with joy.

You will explore the symbolic places of the town, from the ancient walls of the Church to the evocative silence of the Cemetery, up to the archives that jealously guard the historical documents of your family. You will be able to immerse yourself in your genealogy, discovering birth, baptism, marriage and death records, thus finding the roots of your history.

Special encounters will enrich your experience: you will hug the distant relative you knew nothing about and listen to anecdotes from old family friends, which will make you feel at home, even if you are miles away.

You will walk along the ancient alleys, breathing the atmosphere of the past, and you will get lost in the small squares illuminated by the lights of the sunset, letting yourself be enchanted by the slow passage of time.

You will participate in the daily life of the village, attending the religious service and strolling through the colorful markets, where you can taste local products and fully experience the traditions of the place.

The lunch organized by your relatives will be a unique opportunity to savor the typical local cuisine, a journey into the authentic flavors of your homeland.

At the end of your visit, you will receive the “TREASURE CHEST OF MEMORIES”, a precious wooden box containing photos and documents that will accompany you on your return journey, custodians of your family history.

You will experience an unforgettable day in the village of your ancestors, where everyone knows each other and every smile is a link with the past. And even if it’s your first time visiting, you’ll feel that the place has always been a part of you, giving you a feeling of nostalgia and familiarity.

 

Subiaco

Subiaco here you can walk through the history of a community among precious works of art. Crossing the Piazzetta Pietra Sprecata you will reach the small church named after Our Lady of the Cross, which people used as a shelter during wartime conflicts.

One of the most characteristic places in Subiaco is the Borgo Medievale degli Opifici, made up of alleys and small slarghi, the nerve center of Subiaco’s economy where the town’s ancient artisan workshops were based.

You will visit the Monastery of St. Benedict built almost a thousand years ago, which guards the cave (Sacro Speco) where the young Benedict of Norcia spent his hermitic life before devoting himself to monastic life.

Nearby is the Monastery of St. Scholastica, the oldest Benedictine monastery in Italy and the world. “Ora et labora” is written at the entrance to the Monastery. Inside the library of the Monastery of St. Scholastica is the first book printing machine, which arrived in Italy in 1464 by German clerics who invented a new typeface, the Roman type, also known as the “Sublacensis typeface,” giving Subiaco the title of “cradle of Italian printing.” Benedictine monks brought culture to the world by founding schools and universities, providing assistance to Italian emigrants, particularly in Latin American countries. In 1851 they founded the city of Subiaco in Australia, on the outskirts of Perth, where 20,000 Italians reside.

Vallepietra

Vallepietra: You can visit the Shrine of the Holy Trinity in Vallepietra, located under the “Sacred Rock,” a place where emigrants invoked protection before leaving for unknown lands, carrying away blessed images of the Holy Trinity. Visit to the museum below the shrine that collects the most significant ex-votos that pilgrims over the years have donated to the shrine to express their gratitude and devotion.

You can participate in different types of workshops, set up in appropriate facilities: homemade packaging of traditional fresh “sagna” and, at certain times of the year, honey extraction from the Simbrivio Valley.

Starting from Vallepietra you can walk the ancient paths to discover the springs, stopping at enchanted places. These roads led down the valley to the Piglio station and were traveled on foot, in small groups, by those who were forced to leave for unknown lands .

Jenne

Jenne, is a small town perched on a rocky outcrop jutting into the Aniene Valley. Here you can walk a section of the “Via della Transumanza” following the routes of the shepherds who came to the sea at Fondi. You will taste ‘NDREMMAPPI DI JENNE” whole wheat flour milled at the municipal mill and mixed with water and salt. The industrious hands of housewives work it into thin sheets by cutting them into the shape of short sticks. The result of a union lasting hundreds of years between the sea and the mountains. The shepherds, returning with their flocks to the summer pastures brought back what the sea offered them most simply and cheaply: pickled anchovies; to these they combined what they managed with hard work to wrest from the small plots of land in the mountains: wheat.

Cervara of Rome

Cervara di Roma. You will walk the “Stairway of the Artists,” an evocative and exciting path through the old houses of the village where painters, sculptors, and poets have bequeathed their works to the mountain village. The staircase that reaches the main square is an exemplary work in which art, history, and nature come together. Illustrious figures such as Ernest Antoine Hébert, Samuel F.B. Morse, Ludwig Adrian Richter, the Wellmann, Oscar Kochosca, Ennio Morricone found inspiration here . In traversing the staircase there are works, panoramic balconies, rock spurs, old houses and small squares.

You will be greeted by the solemn beauty of the landscapes and the more secular beauty of the local models. Here the painters at the end of the nineteenth century stopped to portray the many beautiful women during the “Grand Tour” and Anticoli Corrado is now known as the town of painters and models. Around 1930 some fifty Italian and foreign painters had set up studios, renting or renovating old houses and stables, where they painted pictures inspired by local muses, who were willing to pose and achieve notoriety unheard of for a peasant woman. The profession of modeling and modeling proved to be an economic resource and an unexpected opportunity for emancipation for the people of Anticolan, especially for the girls, who, in winter, when the artists left again, emigrated to follow them in their studies, gaining autonomy from their families.

Anticles

Visiting Anticoli means discovering a heritage of art in the Baronial Palace where the Civic Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art is housed, a valuable collection of hundreds of works executed on site by artists who stayed in Anticoli. You, too, can try your hand at drawing and painting by participating in mini-courses organized by local artists, and so can the art world,