The thing that ties Colleferro and Gavignano together, two medium-small towns located in the Valley del Sacco, east of the urban province is a strong peasant and archeologica tradition, gradually turned into an industrial tradition. This itinerary will take our traveler on a journey to discover the local history and traditions of two towns located just at the edge of the province of Frosinone, to poke around its anecdotes and the myths surrounding their foundation.

The itinerary starts in the town of Colleferro, which, despite not taking its name from metal – it seems to refer to the transformation of the phonetic value of the letter F to V – boasts, in the Colle Pantanaccio area, an impressive fossil site with remains of local fauna. These remains are preserved in the Archeological Museum of the “Toleriense” Territory which happens to be the first stop on this itinerary. Located in the building that used to house the former BPD factory, the museum is organized in five different main thematic sections, each dedicated to a specific time period: paleontology, stone age and protohistory, archaic period, roman period, high middle ages and middle ages.

The paleontologic section will move even adult visitors, as it offers not only fossilized remains of animals from the Pleistocene but also an impressive life-size replica of a giant straight-tusked elephant (Palaeodoxodon antiquus).

In the medieval section are preserved the remains found in the area surrounding the territory’s many castles, among which the ones from the excavation site at Castello di Piombinara (XII-XVII century): and it’s precisely towards the remains of the church of S.Maria di Piombinara that our traveler now makes their way. First reports of the church that belonged to the castle of the same name date back to the XII century. Demolished after the war to make space for the via Casilina along which it stands, the only thing remaining today are the bell tower, with its squared nase made of irregular blocks of tuff, and an archeological site excavated and valorized by the Archeological Museum in collaboration with the relevant authorities. It will be interesting for out traveler to discover how the archeological history of Colleferro is intrinsically tied to its subsequent industrial transformation in the Archeological Museum itself: the BPD, which stands for Bombrini Parodi-Delfino, was an italian company that operated in different sectors, mainly chemical, founded in 1912 by Giovanni Bombrini and Leopoldo Parodi-Delfino with the aim to manufacture gunpowder and explosives. It’s in the surrounding area BPD that Colleferro’s residential district first developed, as the company’s main factory attracted a lot of people from the countryside. The Edificio Direzionale (office building) to represent the company, built along the Nuova Strada Carpineatana which connects the upper part of town and the factory, was designed between 1935 and 1938 by the great engineer and architect Riccardo Morandi, famous for his prestressed reinforced concrete buildings and the restoration of quality buildings in typical Rationalist style. Morandi also designed the BPD’s Centro Studi, right next to the office building which symbolized the industrial identity of colleferro. Both buildings appear as closed geometric volumes made of concrete and glass, perfectly aligned with the functional needs of the company and the Italian Rationalist style typical of that time.

An important monument from its war period are the Rifugi Antiaerei (air raid shelters): a total of six km of tunnels were dug under the town’s hills. They were, originally, excavation sites to extract pozzolana in order to build homes for the new BPD workers. The shelters were split in “Villaggio Vecchio” (old town) and “Villaggio Nuovo” (new town) aligned to the external part of Colleferro: the old town coincided with the Santa Barbara district while the new town was in the Colle Sant’Antonino and S.Anna area.

In search of the artisanal and peasant nature from which every village gets its essence, our traveler finally moves to Gavignano, a small town with less than 2000 residents, sitting atop the Lepini Mountains, at the junction of the Rio and Sacco rivers. Its romans origins are corroborated by the presence of numerous archeological remains in the Rossilli area – among which a mosaic of Alexandrian origins – and the well documented presence of various patrician villas along the consular streets.

The town’s maximum development happened during the middle ages when numerous churches and abbeys were built, among which the famous, still intact, Abbazzia Rossilli. Many castles and strongholds were also built, so many that Gavignano too, started looking like a castrum, with its outer walls and fortified towers. The tour starts right at Porta Napoletana: where our traveler can immerse themselves in the small alleys of a breathtaking medieval urban center made of local stone, and enjoy seeing the many manor houses and buildings. Some time later, Palazzo Baronale was built around the keep: with its impressive size, it was remodeled many times over the centuries, so much so that the story of its construction goes hand in hand with the story of who lived in it; over the years its residents varied from Amato Conti (1044), to Innocenzo III (1161) and to Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini (1621).