Rocca Priora

Rocca Priora is a village that until the end of the 1900s was called the Glacier of Rome, strategically located overlooking the Valle Latina still offers today a mountain atmosphere and landscapes. At a height of 768 metres a.s.l. Rocca Priora is the highest town of Castelli Romani. It is undoubtedly the coldest in the area with heavy snowfalls every year known as the snowfield of Rome, Rocca Priora owes its past fortune to ice trading.

The Santuario della Madonna della Neve remembers and witnesses the close relationship the town had with its particular climate. a walk through the picturesque alleys of the historical centre, hidden on the side of a high hill facing towards monte Ceraso, offers glimpses of what seems to be time gone by. for those looking out from the Belvedere, positioned on top of the town, it is a chance to enjoy one of the most breathtaking panorama of Castelli Romani, in the direction of rome and the Tiburtini, Prenestini and Ernici Mounts.

Rocca Priora is the coldest village of the Castelli Romani. In the place where today rises the village, many historians have recognized the site of the ancient Latin center of Corbium, that Coriolano occupied in its march on Rome (486 a.C.). The name of Rocca Priora derives from the medieval "Perjura". According to the chronicle Subiaco, in fact, at the end of the XI century stood on the top of the hill a small inhabited center, the Castrum Perjuriae Arcis, which Agapito, accounts of Tusculum, would have given to his daughter.

The fraction hill outside was born around the year 1860 by citizens from Capranica Prenestina. In the first years of the Twentieth Century there was built a school in masonry, on involvement of a group of intellectuals founders of the institution School for the peasants to the Agro Romano and Agro Pontino. Among them we find John Cena (Montanaro, 1870 - Roma, 1917), intellectual and Piedmont writer of peasant origin.

The Dinner, he moved in 1904 in Rome, he devoted himself to the education of the poor masses inaugurating a program of popular schools, coming already in 1910 to found seventy schools for farmers, including in 1912 that Colle di outside. In 1904 was also born a sodality between John Cena and Dr. Angelo Celli, the founder of the 'studies against malaria', and began to fight for the rehabilitation and literacy in the Agro Romano and the Pontine Marshes, together with a small group of scholars including Angelo Celli, Anna Celli, Duilio Cambellotti, Alessandro Marcucci and Sibilla Aleramo.

In the village of Rocca Priora, takes place in January the Feast of Sant'Antonio Abate, a feast in honor of the Patron Saint of animals during which there is the blessing of animals that parade in allegorical floats made mainly of wood decorated with fruit and bread. Very felt is also the feast of the patron saint, S. Rocco, which falls on 16 August.

BY CAR

• Along the highway the closest exits to the center of Rocca Priora are:
  Exit San Cesareo (A1 dir Roma Sud)
  Exit Monte Porzio Catone (A1 dir Roma Sud)
  Valmontone exit (A1 Milan-Naples)
  Tivoli exit (A24 Rome-Teramo)

ON THE TRAIN

• Colle Mattia station
• Zagarolo station
• Roma Tiburtina station
• Roma Ostiense station

BY PLANE

• Rome Ciampino Airport
• Rome Fiumicino Airport

In the village of Rocca Priora, the feast of St. Anthony Abbot takes place in January, a festival in honor of the patron saint of animals during which there is a blessing of animals that parade in floats made mostly of wood decorated with fruit and bread. Also popular is the feast of the patron saint, St. Rocco, which falls on August 16.