Until 1885 the village was called Sant'Angelo in Capoccia, after the Capocci who first held the fortress; a royal decree changed the name. The castle then passed to the Orsini, who turned it into a stronghold, and at the end of the sixteenth century to the Cesi: and it was with them that the place had its moment. In 1612 pope Paul V made it a principality headed by Federico Cesi, the man who in 1603 had founded the Accademia dei Lincei, the oldest in Italy. The village stands on the Cornicolani hills, and its origin is uncertain: some connect it with the vanished city of Medullia.
In 1678 the castle and the whole fief passed to the Borghese, and the decline began. In the nineteenth century the fortress endured occupation by Garibaldi's men, who used the church of San Michele as a dormitory, and during the Second World War by German troops. In 1989 the comune bought the castle and put inside it the prehistoric and protohistoric museum of the Tiber-Cornicolan territory, along with the council offices; from its battlements the eye reaches the Roman castles, Rome itself and the sea. In the parish church there is a fifteenth-century triptych attributed to Antoniazzo Romano.
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📅 Every year, on the third Sunday of May; since 1992 the Folklore Festival in July
Sant'Angelo Romano celebrates its patrons Saint Michael the Archangel and Saint Liberata on the third Sunday of May. Since 1992, in July, the Sant'Angelo Romano International Folklore Festival has been held.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside Sant'Angelo Romano, but an easy day trip away.
