Montelanico

Montelanico lies in a valley surrounded by mountains covered with chestnut woods. Its name has a curious origin: in one version a shepherd had shorn a sheep that had so much wool that it created a 'wool mountain'. Others say the name comes from the Roman family of the Metelli.

The town winds along the road leading from Colleferro to Carpineto and Mount Semprevisa, the highest of the Lepine Mountains.

The first mention of the village came in a bull of Pope Anastasius IV in which a castrum of Montelanico is mentioned as belonging to the church. Subsequently it was placed under the control of the diocese of Segni and finally placed under the control of the Counts of Ceccano who exercised control up to 1428.

In that year Montelanico passed by inheritance to the Counts of Segni, and for two centuries there was a struggle for possession of the fiefdom until in 1640 the Barberini family came. A few years later the Pamphili family took over and finally the Aldobrandini of Carpineto.

A curiosity: the first mayor after the unification of Italy, named Don Francesco Raimondi, was a priest who had had misadventures with the Papal States.

In the main square is the Fountain of the Faune, built in Liberty style by Morolo Ernesto Biondi. The fountain presents three bronze ‘baby angels’ facing the water font poured from the fourth angel in the centre.