Collalto Sabino

The name preserves Collis Altus and the family who first held the hill. Lombards established the village in the tenth century; the Savelli, Strozzi and Soderini families held it in turn before the fief passed to Cardinal Francesco Barberini in 1641. The castle on the summit is the result of his work and that of his nephew Francesco Barberini junior, who enlarged the keep, fortified the walls and built dungeons inside the rock.

It has a central square tower, two round corner towers and a curtain of watchtowers and sentry posts. The village sits at 980 meters northeast of Rome, walled since the fifteenth century, with the fortress set above the stone houses and the older settlement gathered under it on the slope, narrow stairs and panoramic alleys threading between them. Ownership of the fief changed hands for centuries, from Lombards through three baronial families, before the Barberini building campaign gave the place the fortified shape that has lasted: walls below, keep above, the two still reading as one structure from the approach, the panorama at the summit the reward for climbing through all of it.