Tessennano

Tessennano carries an Etruscan in its name: Tesenna, with the Latin suffix that marked the owner of an estate — the land of Tesenna. The village was subject to Tuscania, then passed to Nicola Orsini, who was also despot of Epirus, and in 1422 Ranuccio Farnese the Elder — the condottiero who set his family's fortune going — obtained half the county. It then became part of the duchy of Castro and stayed there until 1649, when that state was wiped out and Tessennano returned to the papal province.

In 1788 pope Pius VI granted the village lands in emphyteusis to the marquis Giovan Battista Casali Patriarca and his descendants: they could enjoy the produce against payment of a rent, an arrangement that held here for generations. The baronial palace the Orsini had built is now the town hall. The fields around, on the southern edge of the Volsini mountains, are planted with olives, and part of the Canino extra virgin olive oil comes from here, which has held protected designation of origin since 1996: in a comune of a few hundred people, that is the item that counts.