Contigliano - Contigliano

Contigliano is a center of the Lazio.

To know

Geographical notes

The village of Contigliano is located on a hill at the foot of the Sabine mountains, on the southwestern edge of the Piana Reatina in Sabina. From the hill the town dominates the terminal part of the Cupa Valley, which opens up between the mountains in the direction of Cottanello. It is 10 km from Rieti, 8 from Greccio, 17 from Cittaducale, 21 from Marmore, 35 from Terminillo.

Background

The ancient name of Contigliano derives from the villa of Marco Fabio Quintiliano, a famous orator and rhetorician of the 1st century. A.D., friend and advisor of Marco Flavio Vespasiano, a native of Sabina. When the orator withdrew from public teaching he lived in his own ager Quintilianus which was populated with houses, constituting a first nucleus of houses.

The first memory of a fortified center called castrum Quintilianum dates back to 1157. The castrum depended on Rieti which exercised control due to its strategic position. In 1501 there was the attack of the knight Vitellozzo Vitelli who led a group of adventure soldiers, while on his way to L'Aquila, in the service of Cesare Borgia. The leader attacked Contigliano because the city had denied him supplies for his army and because a woman had hit him with a large stone and slightly wounded him.

How to orient yourself

The country, closed in between Door of the Saints (with original portal) e Cowardly Door, still retains the ancient nucleus, surrounded in part by medieval walls and in part by houses closed together as if to defend it. The numerous sixteenth and seventeenth-century palaces give it a statuary and austere appearance.

The upper part of Contigliano, characterized by the imposing structure of the Collegiate Church, is full of alleys and steps that reach it with an alternation of arches and stairways.

Neighborhoods

Its municipal territory also includes the villages of San Filippo and Collebaccaro,

How to get

• Rome Ciampino Airport
• Rome Fiumicino Airport

By car

• Autostrada del Sole A1

• from the north exit at Orte, continue for Terni, exit towards Terni Ovest and continue following the signs for Contigliano.
• from the south follow direction Rome North, exit at Fiano Romano, take the SS 4 Salaria towards Rieti. After San Giovanni Reatino, at the end of the long tunnel, keep left to take the SS 675 / SS 79 towards Greccio - Terni - Rieti West and exit at the Contigliano junction.

• From Rieti take the Rieti-Terni highway (SS 79) towards Terni and exit at the Contigliano junction.

On the train

• It has its own train station on the line Terni-Sulmona

By bus

• Cotral bus lines [1]

How to get around

What see

• 42.40906412.7659431 Collegiate Church of S. Michele Arcangelo. Begun by the will of the local families in 1683, it was completed in 1747. The church is characterized by a single nave on which four side chapels open. There are numerous frescoes and paintings of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, including theArchangel Gabriel Filippo Zucchetti from Rieti (1710), the Fall of Simon Magus by the Roman Francesco Ricci (1764). : Inside you can see the choir and the wooden organ of the eighteenth century. carved by Venanzio di Nanzio di Pescocostanzo. 
• Ruins of the church of S. Giovanni. Evocative place from which you can admire the landscape of Rieti basin, behind which the country has developed over the course of history. 
• Remains of the Church of S. Lorenzo. It is the oldest place in the country; the vestiges are located outside the town in the open countryside. 

• 42.43027812.7597222 Remains of the Cistercian Abbey of San Pastore (near the hamlet of Spinacceto di Greccio). The abbey is located on the western edge of the Piana Reatina, perched on the Sabine Mountains, in the municipal area of ​​Contigliano but a short distance from Spinacceto, a hamlet of Greccio. It can be reached from Spinacceto, where "via San Bernardo da Chiaravalle" branches off from the municipal road to Greccio, a dirt road that climbs through a pine forest to the abbey. It can be visited only after contacting the managers.

The abbey develops around a cloister, and includes the church, the chapter house, the parlor, the sacristy and the abbot's apartment. Also to the east is a small baroque apartment, commissioned in 1686 by the abbot, Cardinal Fulvio Astalli. The bell tower at the back of the church dominates the Piana Reatina and it also had to play a role of defense and observation; the year 1292 and the name of the founder, Dominicus Urbevetanus, are engraved on the main bell.

Despite being recently restored, in the long period of neglect the abbey was robbed of many of the decorations it was endowed with. The Abbey of San Pastore is an example of "Cistercian construction still archaic for the continuous and coherent use of stylistic features ascribable to the first construction phase of the Order, such as the pointed barrel vault on the apse part (and perhaps on the entire church), the round arches in the chapter house, the ogives always with a straight section, which refer to other Italian churches of the period: Falleri, the Tre Fontane, San Nicola di Agrigento ».

The current shape of the cloister dates back to 1638, when it was restored by the Lateran Canons. The chapter house has two mullioned windows and is accessed by means of a pointed arch door. The ceiling is made up of large cross vaults, which rest not on counter-pillars, but on large corbels; on the vaults you can see traces of votive frescoes from the 14th century.

The abbey church it does not have a real façade, and it is entered by two entrances: the main one on the left side (north side) and the other on the right side (south side), which leads into the cloister of the monastery. It has a Latin cross plan, divided inside into three naves by quadrangular pillars; each nave is covered by five round sixth bays, of which only those of the right aisle remain. The transept has a great development, due to the Cistercian tradition of separating the church into a part for the monks and one for the faithful. The choir has a square shape and is flanked by the only chapels of the building.

Originally there was also a valuable painting of the Crucifixion in the church, dating back to the sixteenth century, which depicts Christ crucified, the crying Magdalene, the Virgin, St. Thomas, St. John the Evangelist and St. Matthew. The canvas, which according to Sacchetti Sassetti is attributed to the Veronese brothers Lorenzo and Bartolomeo Torresani while according to Palmegiani it has the characteristics of the Umbrian-Roman school, was moved by the Potenzians to the small church of an estate they owned.

Abbot's apartment

Initially this building was used as a dormitory for the monks; [in 1534 Cardinal Agostino Spinola (abbot from 1518 to 1537) decided to transform it into the personal apartment of the commendatory abbot, decorating it with frescoes depicting festoons and joyful scenes. The upper floor, which no longer exists, was used as a dormitory for the monks. Of the sixteenth-century building you can still admire the doors with stone architrave and some rest of the ornamental frescoes, almost all stolen together with the precious fireplace.  

Events and parties

• Procession of the Dead Christ. 
• Assault on the Castle. 
• San Lorenzo annual fair. 
• Pizzicotto Festival. 
• Trout Festival in Cartoccio. 
• Festival of the Waters - Fonte Onnina. 
• Foot race of the Valle Santa. 
• Feast of San Martino. 
• Sucia Pizza Festival. 
• Monthly Fair of Goods and Typical Products. 

What to do

Shopping

• The weekly market is held on Thursdays.

How to have fun

Where to eat

Average prices

• 42.40794312.770761 Le Vigne Restaurant, Via della Repubblica, 14, ☎ 39 0746 706213. 
• 42.40922612.7659972 The Land of Pa, Via Umberto I, 2, ☎ 39 0746 706569. 
• 42.40923912.7659563 Bitter-sweet, Via Umberto I, 1, ☎ 39 0746 706564. 
• 42.41644112.7711564 Il Giardino Restaurant, Via Terni, 36, ☎ 39 0746 706602. 

Where stay

Average prices

• 42.41969612.7632811 Le Fontanelle farmhouse, Via Madonna del Piano, 6, ☎ 39 0746 707143. 

Safety

• 42.41199612.7692371 Buzzi Pharmacy, Via della Repubblica, 51, ☎ 39 0746 706127. 

How to keep in touch

Post office

• 42.41045412.7657612 Italian post, Via Solidati Tiburzi, 41, ☎ 39 0746 706036. 

Around

• Greccio - San Francesco left the Franciscan Abbey there as a tangible trace; as a spiritual legacy the memory of the first representation of the Living Nativity, which is repeated annually.
• Rieti - Considered by the authors of the classical age the geographical center of Italy (Umbilicus Italiae) was founded at the beginning of the Iron Age and became an important city of the Sabines; still today its territory is identified as "Sabina".
• Partial nature reserve of the Lungo and Ripasottile lakes- The [ http://www.riservalaghi.org reserve] falls in part in the Contigliano territory. It is characterized as a humid area that records a good presence of avian species: common buzzard, hooded crow, wood pigeon, mallard, kingfisher, moorhen, gray heron, little grebe, coot. Ripasottile Lake.

Itineraries

• Franciscan sanctuaries in the Rieti plain - A path of nature, faith and art in the Sabina crossed by San Francesco, to visit the four Sanctuaries of the Holy Valley: Greccio, Poggio Bustone, The Forest, Fonte Colombo.
• Via Carolingia - European itinerary that crosses the places traveled by the court of Charlemagne between the 8th and 9th centuries to travel from Aachen to Rome, where Pope Leo III crowned the Carolingian sovereign emperor of the Holy Roman Empire on Christmas night in the 19th century.

Other projects

• Wikipedia contains an entry concerning Contigliano
• Commons contains images or other files on Contigliano

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