

Jenne is an ancient village on a spur of Mount Pratiglio in the Simbruini Mountains chain. The valley below is crossed by the river Aniene and Jenne is located a short distance from the monastery of Subiaco to which it is joined by one of the most panoramic roads in Lazio region.
There are various hypotheses on the origin of the name, one makes it come from "Gehenna" (the gates of hell), the name given to the karst caves at the foot of Mount Pratiglio (the caves of Inferniglio). A Bronze Age sword was found in one of these caves.
Its traditions are deeply peasant and the lands were cultivated up to very high altitudes while the shepherds exploited the good exposure of the fields of Monte Pratiglio.
It seems that the ruins found in the Costa locality are of the ancient center of Tauna abandoned due to the Saracen raids which forced the inhabitants to build a fortress higher up. The origin of the urban nucleus dates back to around the year one thousand with the construction of a first fortified castle to protect people from continuous invasions.
Given its proximity to Subiaco, the Jenne area has almost always been under the direct control of the Subiaco monastery or the papal state. And in fact, the first document in which Jenne is mentioned is found among the donations of Pope Leo IX to the monastery.
The feud of Jenne has had various lords and a plaque on the fortress recalls that in 1176 this castle was granted by Cardinal Simone Abbot of Subiaco to the family of Philip I of Marano. And here in 1254 his nephew Rinaldo was born, who would become Pope Alexander IV. The figure of this pope is important as he was the protagonist of the struggle between the papacy and the empire and of the temporary transfer of the papacy to Viterbo.
The Rinaldo family then left the feud to Pietro Count of Caserta of the Caetani family. Since 1639, Jenne has been governed directly by the Abbey of Subiaco. Today only a few traces remain of the castle and the small church of Saint Mary in Arce or Madonna of the fortress, was the original chapel than enlarged. It was enlarged on the remains of the fortress.
From the mid-eighteenth century, the government of Jenne was assigned directly by the church through the Sacred Congregation of Good Government and in the nineteenth century the works of arrangement of the large church of Saint Andrew were carried out.
The peasant tradition of the village of Jenne is underlined by the recovery of the municipal mill, where the mountain grains were processed with a large French stone, and of the municipal oven where bread was baked.
The pastoral tradition, on the other hand, is found in the re-enactment of the transhumance traveled by the shepherds and Jenne is still connected with Anzio and the Lazio coast through a series of suggestive paths.
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