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Hotel Viterbo

Ferento

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Ferento rises in the tuffaceous high plains of Pianicara, stretching in an east-west direction from the trenches of Guzzarella, to the north, to Acquarossa, to the south, confluent a little more to the east in the Vezza torrent.
It is likely that the area was already occupied during the archaic age by an Etruscan settlement. In the 1st century B.C., after the social war, the center became a municipal ascribed to the tribe Stellatina.
The city is famous for being the birthplace of the Roman Emperor Ottone, who governed in 68 A.D. and Flavia Domitilla, Vespasian's wife, as well.
From the 3rd century A.D., the existence of a Christian community, to which the martyr Saint Eutizio belonged, is asserted.
Ferento had a very long existence, not withstanding that the proportions were continuously reduced, up until 1172 when it was conquered and destroyed by Viterbo.
The urban area, extending over the entire hillock of Pianicara, was protected by a wall belt the can still be seen in small part.
The installation of the town, recognized from an aerial view, presents a regular trend; the major road axis consisted of an urban tract of Via Ferentiensis, connecting artery between Via Cassia and the Faliscan territory. Ruins from the Roman Epic are remarkable; besides the already mentioned major road axis, a theater dating back to the Augustan age is visible, with re-facing done in the Severinian age, that includes the statues of Muse and Eros now found in the National Museum of Archaeology in Viterbo.
Next to the theater there are thermal springs, also dating back to the Augustan age, having been enlarged and restructured at various times. A grand structure in style opus mixtim, where the remains of a frigidarium (cold bath), tepidarium (warm bath), and calidarium (hot bath) are easily recognized.
A series of burial places from the Barbaric age (VI-VII A.D.) were found in a porticoed hall, like in many other olaces in the area that includes the thermal springs and the theater; caskets made with large slabs of peperino (grey volcanic rock), containing one or two undressed skeletons. Epigraphic testimony is found in the forum, an Augusteum, hydraulic installation, and amphitheatre recognized in a large caved out area near the north margin of the plain.
The remains of a medieval tower, visible from the north-east angle, are present while going towards the theater we see the ruins of a small church, perhaps Paleo-Christian, with a single-hall and apses' where the foundations are conserved.
Around the plain (Talone, Pian dlla Lupa, Poggio della Lestra, etc.) necropolises, investigated in the last century and at the beginning of the present seemingly in use in the 4th century B.C., are laid out.
Among these, the sepulchre of the Salvi with twenty sarcophaguses inserted in a chronological arch from the 2nd to the 1st century B.C.
Recent archaeological investigations conducted by the University of Tuscia Studies of the inhabited area have brought to light a domus and tabernae from the Roman epic as well as defensive and building structures from the early medieval period.

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