378 m (1,240 feet), 3,900 ab.
Agricultural
town founded in the late 1500s
It was a
feud of the Orsini family first and later a feud of the Altieri family
It was
known simply as Monte Virginio or Canale
The town
changed its name to Canale Monterano only in 1873
Chiesa
di S. Maria Assunta
Church
of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary
1677/79 Mattia De
Rossi (1637/95) maybe designed by Gian Lorenzo
Bernini (1598/1680)
Monterano
Already
depopulated for malaria during the eighteenth century and finally abandoned in
1799 for the bombing of the French troops
The
survivors moved to the nearby Canale Monterano
There are
still some extremely evocative ruins of the abandoned village:
DUCAL
PALACE, LION FOUNTAIN (now the fountain is in the Piazza del Comune in Canale
Monterano and the Lion, symbol of the city, is in the town hall) and CHURCH AND
CONVENT OF St. BONAVENTURE with OCTAGONAL FOUNTAIN opposite:
Everything
was built in the years 1677/79 by Mattia De Rossi and
Carlo Fontana (1634/1714) from a design by Gian Lorenzo Bernini for Prince Gaspare Altieri in the
period when the uncle of his wife Laura, Clement X Altieri (1670/76 ) was the
pope
Remains of an
aqueduct of the seventeenth century
The Lion Fountain
next to the castle was a big part of the scenery created by the genius of
Bernini with the large waterfall coming down on fake rocks and the lion with
his paw in the middle going along with the flow of water
The floor
of the church of St. Bonaventure is the only original floor of a church built
by Bernini
It has been
the setting for many films including Ben
Hur and the Italian movies Brancaleone
alle Crociate and Il Marchese del
Grillo
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