MONTELIBRETTI

Altitude 232 m (761 feet). 5,000 inhabitants

The town is surrounded by walls and there are several small villages around it

It has the most extensive cultivation of olive oil in the area

It was mentioned by one source in 1018 as Castellum Britti

In the fourteenth century it was a fief of the Orsini family, since 1644 of the Barberini family and later it belonged to the Sciarra family

In 1867 it was the theater of the Roman Countryside Campaign for the Liberation of Rome: here fought the soldiers of Garibaldi against the soldiers of the pope

S. Nicola di Bari

St. Nicholas of Bari

It was built in 1535 and it was almost completely rebuilt in 1773

Inside there are fine paintings of the seventeenth century

Palazzo Barberini

Barberini Palace

It has a square plan with cylindrical towers

Restructured in the seventeenth century over the ancient baronial mansion

Necropolis of Montelibretti

The location of the necropolis is known as Monti del Forno

Underground chamber tombs dug into the tufa stone with dromos (corridors) long up to 6 m (19 feet) with inside niches of a period between the seventh and the first half of the sixth century BC

Maybe it was the cemetery of the ancient city of Eretum cornerstone of the Sabine peoples towards the Lazio region (Virgil mentioned it among the Latin cities who joined against Aeneas) which used to be in this area near the Via Salaria