Vetralla

The name is thought to come from the Latin vetus aula, the old place, or from vetus alia, «the other old one», with reference to Viterbo, which was the vetus urbs. Two kilometres from the medieval town, at Santa Maria di Forcassi, one can still see some walls and part of the paving of the Forum Cassii, the Roman posting station on the via Cassia; it was in the late empire that the population, by then reduced, moved up here, where it was easier to defend themselves. The little fortress entered the papal possessions at their very origin, with the Donation of Sutri in 728. And in 1145 pope Eugene III came to settle here to escape the strife of Rome: it was from Vetralla that he proclaimed the Second Crusade.

The woods of Monte Fogliano were long disputed with Viterbo, and to this day, in the ceremony of the Sposalizio dell'albero, the marriage of the tree, the mayor reaffirms the town's rights over that mountain. The other trade here is clay: the pignattari dug it in caves cut into the tufa over towards Monte Panese and carried it to their workshops on donkeys, and the last kiln in via dei Pilari worked until the early two thousands. And then there was Domenico Baghini, whom they called the horse-man: he would chase calves and cows for hours without tiring, and one day he challenged a locomotive from Vetralla station to Vico Matrino, four and a half kilometres. He won.