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Cottanello: From the Quarries of the Sabine Mountains to the Columns of Saint Peter's
The 44 pink and red columns surrounding the altars of Saint Peter's Basilica came from here — a quarry on Monte Lacerone, 4 kilometres from Cottanello. Bernini commissioned them for the Jubilee of 1650: the blocks were hauled by oxen down to Stimigliano, then loaded onto barges and floated along the Tiber to Rome. It was an undertaking that lasted thirty years. The village — 500 inhabitants, with a double medieval ring of walls, in the province of Rieti — still preserves the layout of the original castrum.
A Roman Villa and an Ancient Name
The place name derives from the Aurelii Cottae, a senatorial family that owned a villa here. The villa’s remains are in the locality of Collesecco; it had around thirty rooms with polychrome mosaics, tesserae of local marble and glass paste depicting flowers and poultry. The villa was already inhabited in the 1st century BC and remained so until late antiquity.
The Hermitage in the Rock
At the edge of the village, on the provincial road climbing from Rieti, the Hermitage of San Cataldo emerges from a granite spur. It appears to be part of the mountain itself. The monks of Farfa used it as a retreat for contemplation. Inside, Byzantine frescoes from the 12th and 13th centuries, among them a Christ Enthroned with the Apostles, hidden beneath plaster until 1944: a German explosion brought it back to light without destroying it. Since 2018, the hermitage and the quarry together form a Natural Monument of the Lazio Region.
