Rignano Flaminio

Rignano Flaminio has 9,573 inhabitants along the Via Flaminia, and of that road it keeps an ancient stretch running parallel to today's trunk road. At the beginning of the sixth century, on the estate of the Roman matron Theodora, the church of Saints Abondius and Abondantius was built in honour of the two martyrs buried here; it became a place of pilgrimage, and in 999 Otto III took their relics to Rome together with those of Theodora, by then venerated as a saint.

Rignano saw the emperors pass through: in 972 Otto I stopped here after his coronation in Rome, and in 1159 pope Adrian IV died here, fleeing towards Civita Castellana to escape a revolt. The castle belonged to the Savelli, who held it in emphyteusis from the church of Santa Maria in Trastevere, until Alexander VI took it from them in 1501: it was Cesare Borgia who had it rebuilt. The husband of Vannozza Cattanei, the Borgia pope's mistress, came from the town, then called Arignano.