The village bears the surname of the owners of a villa: the Aurelii Cotta, a branch of the gens Aurelia, who had a large country house at Collesecco, inside the ager foronovanus. The villa was found in 1968 and has an atrium with an impluvium, baths, a dining room, a peristyle and some thirty rooms, with mosaic floors made of the local limestone and the local red marble; below it runs a barrel-vaulted cryptoporticus, and the water came from an underground aqueduct. Beside the manor part worked a slave-run farm that produced the food.
The other thing that carries the village's name is Cottanello red marble, quarried a short walk away: the ancient quarry now lies inside a natural monument together with the hermitage of San Cataldo, cut into the rock. In the old town the Porta del Regno and the Porta Romana remain, the guard post with its defensive tower and Palazzo Orsini, and the streets have names that describe the shape of the place, like via del Corridoio.
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📅 Every year, on 30 November (Saint Andrew) and 10 May (Saint Cataldus)
Cottanello celebrates Saint Andrew the Apostle on 30 November; the municipality also celebrates Saint Cataldus, on 10 May, to whom the Eremo di San Cataldo is dedicated.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside Cottanello, but an easy day trip away.
