Patron saint festival In 143 days
Saints Quirinus and Candidus, patrons of the Etruscan land of Vulci
📅 Every year, on 9 March
Montalto di Castro celebrates its patrons, Saint Quirinus and Saint Candidus, on 9 March.
Montalto di Castro has 8,770 inhabitants in the Maremma of Lazio, on the river Fiora, and it is the westernmost comune of the region: a little to the north the Chiarone stream marks the border with Tuscany. Two stories are told about its origins, neither documented: that the castrum Montis Alti was founded by refugees from Gravisca, destroyed by pirates, or by Desiderius, king of the Lombards. Into real history Montalto enters in 852, when its name appears in a bull of pope Leo IV addressed to the bishop of Tuscania.
The town spent centuries in danger of disappearing. In the fourteenth century it counted more than a thousand men, then wars and crisis reduced it to two hundred and fifty; in 1421 pope Martin V wrote a bull expressly to repopulate it, because someone was needed to watch over the Dogana dei Pascoli. In 1709 the inhabitants were one hundred and eighty-two, the historic low, and it took the reforms of Pius VI to bring them back up. In the nineteen-eighties a nuclear power station was built here that never entered service.
The Montalto di Castro guide
🎉 Festivals and feasts in Montalto di Castro 1
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🍝 The flavours of Montalto di Castro
Orvieto white DOC wine from the hills between Terni and Viterbo
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.
Near Montalto di Castro
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Places to see within 25 km
Outside Montalto di Castro, but an easy day trip away.
Royal Palace of Caserta 📍 Caserta · 18 km The Bourbon palace: 1,200 rooms, 1,742 windows and three kilometres of fountains uphill. Belvedere di San Leucio 📍 Caserta · 15 km UNESCO Bourbon complex at San Leucio, with royal apartments, Italian garden and Silk Museum. Oasi Bosco di San Silvestro 📍 Caserta · 15 km WWF oasis of 1993 on the hills of Montemaiulo and Montebriano, a former Bourbon royal estate of 76 hectares. Fontana di Diana e Atteone 📍 Caserta · 15 km Fountain with marble groups of the myth of Diana and Actaeon, at the end of the Italian garden of the Reggia di Caserta. Castello di Casertavecchia 📍 Caserta · 18 km Ruined castle of Casertavecchia, with a great sixteen-sided cylindrical keep. chiesa di San Rufo 📍 Caserta · 17 km Medieval parish church of Piedimonte, in tuff, with an exposed dome, fifteenth-century frescoes and a cippus of 1556.