Italy, Vacone

Vacone is a medieval village that overlooks the Tiber Valley. It was inhabited by the Sabines, and here was the temple dedicated to the Sabina goddess Vacuna. During the Roman period this was an area of villas and the villa of the poet Horace is here. After a dark period, around a thousand all the inhabitants of this area took refuge in fortified castrum in the high area under the protection of the Abbeys to escape the Saracen invasions. The first historical news of Vacone in the records of the Abbey of Farfa dating back to 1027. In 1237 it was bought by Pope Gregory IX and, at the end of the thirteenth century, it became a possession of the Orsini family. Then it passed in 1595 to Gaspare Spada and after 1724 it belonged to Clarelli family.