Manziana

Manziana has 7,082 inhabitants in the Sabatini mountains, above lake Bracciano, and it takes its name from the wood: the Silva Mantiana, which several scholars believe carries within it the name of Mantus, an Etruscan deity of the underworld — a sign that the forest was held sacred. From the springs of the Fiora, close by, the Romans drew the water for the Aqua Traiana, inaugurated in 109 and built to serve the western quarters of Rome.

Today's village, though, was born on a drawing board. The medieval settlement, the castle of Santa Pupa, had emptied out until it disappeared between the fourteenth and the sixteenth centuries; so the Arcispedale of Santo Spirito in Saxia, which owned it, decided to repopulate its lands by offering farms, tax exemptions and concessions. Families came from Tuscany, Umbria and the Marche, and the new borgo was laid out on Renaissance principles — a central square and regular axes — to a design now attributed to Ottaviano Mascherino. That is when Santa Pupa stopped being called that and took the name of the wood.