Capranica Prenestina

Capranica Prenestina stands in the Prenestini mountains, and its territory holds two records. The first is the hamlet of Guadagnolo, the highest inhabited place in Lazio among those that are not the seat of a comune; the second is the sanctuary of the Mentorella, one of the oldest Marian sanctuaries in Italy and in Europe. Where the village's name comes from, on the other hand, nobody knows: the usual explanation ties it to goats and pasture, but the medieval forms that ought to prove it — Campanica, Capralica — have never been found in any document. The addition «Prenestina» is certain: it dates from 1872 and served to tell the village from the town of the same name near Viterbo.

What you notice at once, climbing up, are the chestnut trees. On the eastern slopes of the Prenestini the chestnut wood is ancient, and one hundred and sixty-six hectares of centuries-old monumental trees are protected as a natural monument under the name of Castagneto prenestino. In the woods the stone drying houses remain, where chestnuts were dried to make the mosciarella, the product of these mountains. Higher up, on the limestone grasslands of Monte Guadagnolo, orchids grow: the area is protected as a special conservation zone.