If our traveler is passionate about stories involving noble families, then the itinerary that ties Cave and Genazzano through the history and settlements of the Colonna clan should be right up their alley. The Colonna were an old roman family whose origin dates to nine centuries ago: the first documented member was Pietro, who lived between 1078 and 1108 in the south-Roman countryside, in the town of Colonna which gave the family its name. Since then, well over thirty-one generations have followed, with the main branch settling in Rome at the start of 1200, on the slopes of the Quirinale. Amongst its heirs, Odoardo Colonna benefitted, along with his brothers Antonio and Prospero, from the nepotistic policies of pope Oddone Colonna of Genazzano, Martino V, who in 1425 granted his three nephews a permanent feud in the Prenestini Mountains territory. On June 1st 1427, the pope decided to split the family’s assets thus giving Cave, Genazzano and several other villages, to the Colonna brothers. Our traveler’s journey begins in Cave and its medieval hamlet littered with churches connected to the Colonna family: in the X century, at a distance of approximately a mile to reach Praeneste from the old town of Castrum Trebarum, where the pozzolana and tuff mines were located, a new residential area called “Cavarum Terra” (origin of its current name) was starting to grow. Around that same time, a seal from the Bishop of Palestrina, Stefano II, certified that the bishop, with the favour of Pietro Colonna, recognized the Church of San Lorenzo Martire and transformed its appearance, gifting it with a new facade e two small aisles which turned the parish into a small roman cathedral with frescoes. A historically relevant date for Cave was 1462, when Odoardo Colonna decided to write in his will that he would be buried in the Church of Santo Stefano inside the Augustinian monastery, erected in 1428 at the behest of pope Martino V. In 1768, after a growth in population size, the architect Nicola Fagiolo, pupil of Vanvitelli, was commissioned with building a new upper church, visible from the lower church through a porthole on the ceiling of the latter. The San Carlo Borromeo monastery and Church were erected back in 1567 in a place called “la villa” because of the presence of an ancient roman villa, at the behest of the wealthy Biscia di Cave family. A commission from Lombardia, just like the one of Filippo I Colonna who, son of Anna Borromeo and thus nephew of San Carlo, ended up dedicating the church and monastery to the Milanese patron saint. In a perfect journey in time towards the future, our traveler will find a link between the religious environment and local artistic culture in the figure of Lorenzo Ferri (1902-1975): sculptor, painter, restorer and sindonologist, he frequented the roman clerical spaces because of his studies on the Holy Shroud where he struck up a friendship with Monsignor Lorenzo Castellani, vicar of Cave, who introduced the artist to the small town. His first project for the town was a painting of the Veronica depicting Jesus’ face crowned with thorns, made for the “Comitato Pro-Venerdì Santo” (of which Monsignor Castellani was the director) and now displayed in the church of Santa Maria Assunta. Later on he created two more pieces as a testament to his emotional connection to Cave: a bronze door for the Church of Saint Maria Assunta and the Shrouded Crucifix, displayed in the San Bartolomeo district. Lorenzo Ferri is who the artistic section of the Civic Museum, in the former Mattei Hospital (last stop in our traveler’s journey through the city of Cave), is dedicated to and named after. The museum’s exhibition is divided in three sections that retrace the most important stages of the artist’s life: the first room hosts a plaster cast gallery of original pieces in plaster, highly representative of the different phases in his career. The hypogeal rooms of Palazzo Comunale, former home of the Augustinian monastery, hold the sindonic section and the Monumental Nativity instead.

Our traveler can now move onto Genazzano, making a first stop at the Castello Colonna, on an imaginary trip that follows the family’s steps: located on a tuff spur, it offers an amazing view on the immense landscape that extends from the Valley of Sacco to the eastern mountains. The story of the Castle, as evidenced by its name, is tied to the Colonna family who, from the XI century, took a simple defensive stronghold and turned it into a manor of great artistic and architectural worth. It’s in 1639 that cardinal Girolamo Colonna commissions the internal frescoes: among these frescoes, the ones displayed in the chapel situated on the first floor’s eastern wing are particularly worthy of note, depicting glimpses of landscapes as they appeared back in the day, together with sacred scenes.