Rocca Canterano

There are no straight streets here, and that is no accident. When the population grew and houses began to appear outside the walls, the times were still dangerous because of the bands roaming the area: so the inner lanes were built zigzagging and entirely as flights of steps, to make life hard for anyone attempting an assault. That shape still draws the whole village today. The fortress had been ordered in 1084 by the abbot of Subiaco, and when five centuries later it became useless its stones were used to raise a palace.

Once the fortress was finished, though, there were no women. The men went down to the two neighbouring villages, Canterano and Cerreto, and carried them off. To make good the resentment that followed, a feast of reconciliation was instituted: a yearly public dinner, led by a chamberlain, to which the families of the abducted women were also invited, with the noodles they call cecamariti here. For about a hundred years the dinner has been a reception instead, but the feast is still held. In 1809 the young men of the village were conscripted for the Grande Armée; the empire fell before they left, and in thanks they carried on foot from Rome a very heavy gilded canopy, which is still borne in procession.