The patron saint of Civitavecchia is Saint Fermina, celebrated on 28 April: already in the 17th century the town's coat of arms depicted her, before being replaced, in the following century, by the oak that still characterises it today.
The town arose as Centumcellae at the will of Emperor Trajan, who around 110 AD began construction of the port and established his own residence nearby to directly oversee the works: the first attestation of the place name appears in a letter by Pliny the Younger. In 828, after a Saracen invasion, the population abandoned the settlement, taking refuge first in the mountains and then in a new settlement called Cencelle, returning only in 889, changing the town's name to Civitas Vetula.
During the Second World War Civitavecchia suffered devastation of exceptional proportions: seventy-six aerial bombings between May 1943 and June 1944 destroyed ninety-five per cent of public and private buildings, including the cathedral, the medieval quarter and the ancient Rocca. The first raid, on 14 May 1943, caused about four hundred deaths, put the port out of action and forced the town hall to move temporarily to Santa Marinella. Today the port of Civitavecchia is among the most important in Italy, the leading European port by number of cruise passengers in transit.
