Orvinio

Until 1863 this village was called Canemorto, dead dog. Then it took the name Orvinio, from the ancient Orvinium: the town of the Aborigines that Dionysius of Halicarnassus names as their most important centre, dominated by a temple of Minerva and destroyed before the year one thousand. Of the old name, though, a trace remains: on the municipal coat of arms, above the castle, there is still a silver dog rampant with a red collar. The castle, that of the Malvezzi Campeggi, has commanded the village since the year one thousand and was enlarged by the Orsini in the fifteen hundreds; it has a cylindrical keep, battlemented walls and, around it, century-old cedars of Lebanon.

Outside the village stands the sanctuary of Vallebona, and the legend that explains it. A shepherd was cutting branches when he struck by accident an image of the Virgin hidden in the brambles: the image cried out and began to bleed. They carried it to a church in the village, but the next day it was gone: it had returned to where they had found it. So they built the sanctuary on that very spot, and in 1727 the Madonna of Vallebona was declared patroness of Orvinio. The village was also the birthplace of the painter Vincenzo Manenti, who decorated the church of Santa Maria dei Raccomandati from top to bottom and was buried there; and later of Natalino Forte, who in 2011 published fifteen cantos of Dante's Inferno translated into the dialect of Orvinio.