Capranica has 6,644 inhabitants on the via Cassia, at kilometre 55, on the first slopes of the Cimino volcano, and it is one of the towns the via Francigena passes through. The old centre sits on a tongue of tuff that looks like a ship: the prow points towards Rome, and two gates a short way apart close it off. The name, so the legend goes, comes from some goatherds who had left the nearby village of Vico Matrino and called the place Capralica, the goats' holm oak; it is said to have become Capranica because of a goatherd called Nica.
From 1305 the town belonged to the Anguillara, and in 1337 Francesco Petrarca stayed here as the guest of count Orso, the only one of the family who actually lived in the castle. It was he who enlarged the fortress, which also served to organise the counts' raids on the lands around. The end came on 7 July 1465: his successors had set themselves against pope Paul II, and Capranica, together with the villages it controlled, rose in revolt. The pope had the castle taken apart, leaving a single tower standing, and in place of the counts sent a cardinal governor: for almost four centuries, until 1831, the town was the capital of a governorate.
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📅 Every year, on the first Sunday of September, with the cocciarelle procession
Capranica celebrates its patron Saint Terentianus on the first Sunday of September, even though the liturgical feast, marking the anniversary of his death and martyrdom, falls on the 1st of that month. The procession is called by locals the «processione delle cocciarelle».
A white wine carved into Etruscan tufa history, toasted by Garibaldi's Thousand: Orvieto has held Denominazione di Origine Controllata status since 1971.
Read more →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 Capranica, but an easy day trip away.
