Morlupo

Morlupo has 8,122 inhabitants on the Flaminia, thirty kilometres north of Rome — and it is exactly north: the two longitudes coincide. The name, so the learned tradition says, comes from Martis rapaces lupi, "the rapacious wolves of Mars", and the motto is still on the coat of arms of the comune. The old part, the Mazzocca quarter, occupies a horseshoe-shaped terrace of tufa ringed by cliffs, and it stands where the Romans had the statio Ad Vigesimum, the posting station at the twentieth mile of the via Flaminia.

The village, though, was born out of a flight. Between 850 and 900 the raids of the Saracens and the Hungarians laid waste the farms of this area and nearby Monte la Guardia; the refugees handed their lands over to the Church in exchange for protection and took shelter on that almost inaccessible spur, closed in by precipices on three sides. A rock too carries Morlupo's name: the trachyte of Morlupo, one of the lava deposits of the Sabatine volcanic district.