Vetralla - Foro Cassio - Furcari - Chiesa di Santa Maria
Two thousand of History and histories
Volunteers for reception
Municipality of Vetralla
V stage of Sigeric's diary from Rome
Via Francigena
If a place has a history, it remains in the memory forever.
Forum Cassii was founded in a strategic location along the Via Cassia (built around the mid-2nd century BC): from here, a bypass road connected it to the Via Clodia. Initially, it served as a Statio, a sort of Roman army barracks, and a rest stop and post station. During Roman times, it was the most important settlement in the Vetralla area, boasting baths with mosaics, waterworks, luxurious buildings, and a small amphitheater, as documented in an article in Archeologia Classica by Stefania Quillici Gigli in 1977.
The settlement of Forum Cassius is recorded in three of the great "itineraria" of late antiquity: the Tabula Peutingeriana, the Itinerarium Antonini, and the Cosmographia by the Anonymous Ravenna. These documents testify to its uninterrupted function as a station, from the 4th to the 10th century, along the consular Via Cassia and then along the Via Francigena, which was, in the Middle Ages, one of the most important European communication routes. In 852, a Papal Bull of Leo IV records the Massa di Forum Cassii: an agricultural estate with farmhouses, land, vineyards, and woods. The original structural layout of the church perhaps dates back to this period. In 990, Archbishop Sigeric, after receiving the Pallium from the Pope, returned from Rome to Canterbury. The English archbishop described the 79 stages of his itinerary, noting them in a diary.