Bassano in Teverina

Below the village, not far from the Tiber, lies the lake of Vadimo, which here they simply call the Pond. Pliny the Younger described it as «a wheel regular in every way», of a green more intense than that of the sea; today it is nearly silted up. Sulphurous springs feed it and, mixing with the vegetation, form floating masses: those are the famous floating islands the Latin authors spoke of. The lake was sacred: on its banks the Etruscans held rites and periodic feasts, and the Romans dipped their weapons in it to make them invincible. On these waters men fought twice, in 309 and in 283 before Christ, and the second battle settled the match between Rome, the Etruscans and the Senones; according to legend the Tiber turned red and carried the bodies of the enemy down to Rome, announcing the victory to the city.

The name of the village, instead, comes from a Bassus who owned the great estates here. The borgo stands on a spur of tuff looking over the valley of the Tiber, and tradition has it that countess Matilda of Canossa gave it to pope Gregory VII in 1070; a bull of Innocent III of 1212 confirms that the fief had long belonged to the Apostolic Chamber, which kept it, with a few interruptions, for centuries. In 1929 the comune, small and weak, was merged with that of Orte, and became autonomous again only in 1958. The day that changed everything, though, is 25 November 1943: a German train loaded with ammunition, standing in the station below the village, blew up. The blast lifted the roofs and knocked down the walls of the old borgo, which was abandoned and stayed uninhabitable for decades. Today it is among the most beautiful villages of Italy.