Nerola is a town and ''

comune The (; plural: ) is a local administrative division of Italy, roughly equivalent to a township or municipality. It is the third-level administrative division of Italy, after regions ('' regioni'') and provinces (''province''). The can also ...

'' of the

Metropolitan City of Rome Metropolitan City of Rome Capital ( it, Città metropolitana di Roma Capitale) is an area of local government at the level of metropolitan city in the Lazio region of the Republic of Italy. It comprises the territory of the city of Rome and 120 o ...

Latium Latium ( , ; ) is the region of central western Italy in which the city of Rome was founded and grew to be the capital city of the Roman Empire. Definition Latium was originally a small triangle of fertile, volcanic soil (Old Latium) on whi ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

Name

The name Nerola is probably derived from the

Sabine The Sabines (; lat, Sabini; it, Sabini, all exonyms) were an Italic people who lived in the central Apennine Mountains of the ancient Italian Peninsula, also inhabiting Latium north of the Anio before the founding of Rome. The Sabines divide ...

word ''nero'' or ''nerio'', which meant "strong" and "brave". The inscription on the fountain in the piazza of the town hall ''A Nerone tuum Nerola nomen habet'' traces the origin of the name back to the Roman emperor

Nero Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus ( ; born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus; 15 December AD 37 – 9 June AD 68), was the fifth Roman emperor and final emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, reigning from AD 54 un ...

, who belonged to the

gens In ancient Rome, a gens ( or , ; plural: ''gentes'' ) was a family consisting of individuals who shared the same Roman naming conventions#Nomen, nomen and who claimed descent from a common ancestor. A branch of a gens was called a ''stirps'' (p ...

Claudia, which had distant

origins. Traces of a Roman era villa have been found on that site, which legend attributes as belonging to Nero himself.

History

Acquaviva

Within the ''comune'' is the ''

frazione A ''frazione'' (plural: ) is a type of subdivision of a ''comune'' (municipality) in Italy, often a small village or hamlet outside the main town. Most ''frazioni'' were created during the Fascist era (1922–1943) as a way to consolidate territ ...

'' of Acquaviva, on the ancient

Via Salaria The Via Salaria was an ancient Roman road in Italy. It eventually ran from Rome (from Porta Salaria of the Aurelian Walls) to ''Castrum Truentinum'' (Porto d'Ascoli) on the Adriatic coast, a distance of 242 km. The road also passed throug ...

. This may have been the seat of the bishopric called ''Aquaviva'' in

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

, whose bishops took part in synods held in Rome in the second half of the 5th century and the beginning of the 6th: Paulus or Paulinus in 465, Benignus in 487, 497, and 502, and Bonifacius in 503. No longer a residential bishopric, Aquaviva is today listed by the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

as a

titular see A titular see in various churches is an episcopal see of a former diocese that no longer functions, sometimes called a "dead diocese". The ordinary or hierarch of such a see may be styled a "titular metropolitan" (highest rank), "titular archbish ...

Castello Orsini di Nerola The Castello Orsini di Nerola or Castello di Nerola is a medieval, Romanesque-style castle situated atop a hill above the town of Nerola in the Province of Rome, Italy. The address is on via Aldo Bigelli. It now functions as a hotel and conferenc ...

In the second half of the 10th century, the castle ''Castrum Nerulae'' was founded by the "Sabine chancellor" Benedetto Crescenzi, and the Crescenzi family held it until 1235, when it came under the direct control of the pope. At the end of the 12th century, the fiefdom was granted to the

Orsini family The House of Orsini is an Italian noble family that was one of the most influential princely families in medieval Italy and Renaissance Rome. Members of the Orsini family include five popes: Stephen II (752-757), Paul I (757-767), Celestine II ...

, who built the present ''Castello Orsini''. At the end of the 15th century, the castle was subsequently reinforced with strong towers and other defensive fortifications around the village. Near the castle, the ''chiesa vecchia'' (Old Church) was built in 1483. In 1644, the castle and the territory of Nerola were yielded to the

Barberini The House of Barberini are a family of the Italian nobility that rose to prominence in 17th century Rome. Their influence peaked with the election of Cardinal Maffeo Barberini to the papal throne in 1623, as Pope Urban VIII. Their urban palace ...

family along with the Montelibretti family and, in 1728, entered into possession of the Sciarra clan, and thence to the Lante della Rovere family, who founded the charitable institution of the ''Ospedale dei Pellegrini'' to assist travellers on the Via Salaria. In 1867, the castle was occupied by a contingent of partisans of

Giuseppe Garibaldi Giuseppe Maria Garibaldi ( , ;In his native Ligurian language, he is known as ''Gioxeppe Gaibado''. In his particular Niçard dialect of Ligurian, he was known as ''Jousé'' or ''Josep''. 4 July 1807 – 2 June 1882) was an Italian general, patr ...

who were fighting against papal troops. Since passing to Marquis Ferrari-Frey in 1939, the castle has been restored and now houses a hotel.

COVID-19

During the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

, Nerola suffered a particularly high infection rate, and was entirely quarantined by authorities around the end of March 2020. Public health officials then attempted to test every one of its more than 1800 inhabitants to better understand the spread of the virus.

References

Cities and towns in Lazio {{Latium-geo-stub