Ciciliano

At the foot of Ciciliano there was a Roman town that Martial liked better than Tivoli. It was called Trebula Suffenas, and the poet praised it for the coolness of its summer and for the goodness of its cheeses; it had become a municipium in the first century before Christ and administered a wide territory, between the Empolitana valley, that of the Giovenzano and the middle valley of the Aniene. Its fortune lies in one family: the Plautii Silvani, who came from here. Marcus Plautius Silvanus was consul together with Augustus; his mother Urgulania, of Etruscan stock, was the friend and confidante of Livia; and his daughter, Plautia Urgulanilla, was the first wife of the future emperor Claudius. Today the territory of Ciciliano is the widest archaeological area of eastern Lazio after Tivoli and Palestrina.

The village of today is born when that town ends. In the fifth century, with the invasions, some inhabitants of Trebula took refuge on the nearby hill, which was called Caecilianum because it belonged to the Caecilii — and the brick stamps with the family's name, found here, confirm it. Then came the strongholds of the abbots of Subiaco, at odds with the bishops of Tivoli over the control of the area, and the village drew close around the rock and the church of Sant'Erasmo. In 1357 the castrum passed to the Colonna, who held it about two hundred years: under them the rock became four-square with towers at the corners, and in the church of Santa Liberata the cycle of the masters close to Antoniazzo Romano was frescoed. In 1563 Marcantonio Colonna sold it to the Massimo, and in 1572 the county was bought for twenty-six thousand Roman scudi by Gerolamo Theodoli, bishop of Cadiz: the castle still bears his name.