Montenero Sabino

Montenero Sabino has its name written in its own stone. It appears as Monte Nirium in a deed of the Farfa register of 1023, and as Mons Nigrus in others shortly after: the black comes partly from the thick woods around the village, but above all from the dark flint of which these mountains are made. The poet Orazio Massari says as much in his Sabiniade: it will be the village of the mountain that shall bear the name black, from whose stones the spark is struck. Of that stone there are real quarries here, and the extraction and trade of flint for muskets and lighters were for centuries a paying industry.

The castle stands at the top of the village and is documented from 1023, but the story worth telling is that of 1503: pope Alexander VI had ordered the destruction of every stronghold within forty miles of Rome, and Montenero was saved because the Orsini, who then held it, interceded for it. The castle later passed to the Conti, the Mareri, the Savelli, back to the Orsini and to the Mattei. In 1671 Clement X raised Montenero to a duchy, and in 1755, with the pope's leave, castle and title were sold together to the Vincentini marquises of Rieti.