Filacciano

The name is that of an owner: the fundus Flaccus, Flaccus's estate, which became Flaccianus and then Filacciano. It is no isolated case around here: Fiano comes from the gens Flavia, Ponzano from the gens Pontia, and the Tiber valley is full of villages carrying the surname of whoever owned the land. The first written record is from 779, in a donation to the abbey of Farfa; the farmstead was built by monks as a hermitage, and around 980 they added the church of Sant'Egidio Abate. In 1300 the village had about four hundred inhabitants, and we know it from the salt it consumed.

From 1344 Filacciano belonged to the Orsini, and with the Orsini it ended up inside a war: in 1485 Ferrante of Aragon, king of Naples, took them into his service against the pope, and the village changed hands twice in a few months, so much so that a document records it as castrum Philassani nunc diruto. When the war was over the castle and its tower were rebuilt, and later a palace was raised around it that swallowed the old tower. In 1528 the fief was given to Elena Orsini, illegitimate daughter of Aldobrandino, with the title of baroness: she was owed a dowry in money, and instead of the cash they gave her the village.