Orvinio

The country of brooms.

The Name

The ancient name of this medieval village was “Canemorto”, dead dog, which traditionally was attributed to Charlemagne’s armies who the called Saracen troops crushed at battle "dead dogs". With the advent of the Kingdom of Italy, in 1863 the town was called Orvinio, due to the non verified conviction that Canemorto rose from the area of the ancient Sabino-Roman town of Orvinium, cited both by Marco Terenzio Varrone and Dionysius of Halicarnassus (I cent. BC).

History

working in progress

THE PAINTINGS OF THE MOST IMPORTANT SABINA PAINTER

The Sabin village of Orvinio is the highest town in the Parco of Monti Lucretili, it is in a panoramic and fortunate area, equal in distance from both the Tiburtina and Salaria roads.

This is a place where you can breath mountain air, full of historical and artistic memories due to the many artists born and hosted here, and above all it is interesting for the Churches, including ones that have now disappeared such as Santa Maria del Piano, which was considered to have been built by Charlemagne after the victory against the Saracens (817) and was then used for other purposes it has been almost totally destroyed; and the 1536 old church on top of which the parish Church of San Nicola from Bari was built the in 1842.
On the top of the hill on the high side of the village you will find the Church of Santa Maria dei Raccomandati, built in the second half of the sixteenth century, you can find work by artists such as Vincenzo Manenti and of his father Ascanio, both of whom are buried here.
The Church of San Giacomo, designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, was erected in 1612, commissioned by Baron Giacomo Muti. Octagonal, it also boasts paintings of Vincent Manenti in its two side altars. The talented local painter also worked in the Church of Santa Maria di Vallebona, located in an old suburb just a few miles away from Orvinio, along the road to Scandriglia.
The church was built in 1643, and even here the artist expresses through his work the Christian devotion of his clients.
There is, in all of these churches, in the semi-dark atmosphere of the sacristy, that reveals ancient feelings, something that comes from the silence and begins to talk: the same thing happens when, walking along the streets of the village in the calm of an idle day, a simple gesture like a girl who shifts a curtain is enough to love this simple village life, now lost.
In the old town there are still parts of the old walls with its defensive towers and some residential Renaissance constructions. The castle, built for defensive purposes around the year one thousand, was enlarged by the Orsini family in the sixteenth century, and now shows recent changes.

Local Products

The typical potato, but also honey and spelt, whose cultivation, after being abandoned for a long time, has recently been resumed, are excellent.

Local dishes