The best walks and hikes around Colle della Foresta

Palazzo Governo, Piazza Cesare, Rieti Prefecture of Rieti / Prefecture - Territorial Office of the Government of Rieti Historical Notes on the Government Palace The Palazzo Vincentini, located in Piazza Cesare Battisti in Rieti, is remembered in ancient documents as Casa Poiana, since the powerful Marco Antonio Vincentini purchased it from the Poiani family of Amelia in 1589. Renovation work began that same year and was completed after 1624. According to literary tradition, the architect responsible for the construction was the 19th-century painter Jacopo Barozzi, known as Vignola. The palace, in the late Mannerist style, has an elegant door on its main façade, decorated with the family coat of arms with the flame in the center, five eight-pointed stars in the central band, and the sea in the background. When the Vincentini family sold the palace to the Province of Rieti in 1927 to provide a worthy home for the Prefecture, the garden fence was demolished, transforming it from a place of private entertainment into a place of popular assembly. Inside the building are the Prefectural offices, and on the ground floor are the Prefect's private apartments. From an artistic point of view, it is important to remember two valuable pictorial works by local artists active in the various fields. On the ground floor, in front of the entrance, there is a small room painted by the painter Arduino Angelucci (Rieti 1901-1981), who in 1931 created the pictorial decorations of the wall in tempera and the safe. The murals tell the ancient history of Sabina through medallions, coats of arms, and monumental figures in niches celebrating the region's historically significant figures: the scholar Marcus Terentius Varro (116 BC) and the Emperor Flavius Vespasian (9 AD). The coats of arms of the most important villages of Sabina are highlighted: Rieti, Cittaducale, Poggio Mirteto, Fara Sabina, Orvinio, Leonessa, Borbona, Rocca Sinibalda, Borgorose, Amatrice, and Magliano. In addition, views of the centers of Rieti, Vescovio, Amatrice, Farfa, and the forged bronze medallions depict four episodes from the Legends of the Sabine Women: the "Rape of the Sabine Women," the "Sacrifice to Rhea," the "Sacrifice to Saturn," and the "Sacred Spring." Text / Source: Prefecture - Territorial Office of the Government of Rieti https://www1.prefettura.it/rieti/contenuti/Cenni_storici_sul_palazzo_del_governo-8273.htm

Grande Albergo Quattro Stagioni, Piazza Cesare, Rieti RI Quattro Stagioni, Piazza Cesare Battisti 14, Rieti RI The hotel is located in a restricted-traffic zone within the medieval walls that surround much of the city center, overlooking the Romanesque cathedral, in front of the magnificent Italian garden of Palazzo Vincentini, two minutes from Sabina Universitas and the shopping street, and in front of the elevator leading to the newly renovated Santa Lucia Cultural Center. The strategic location also allows visitors to walk to the center of Italy (Umbilicus Italiae, as Rieti's Marco Terenzio Varrone called it) in Piazza San Rufo, whose church houses a wonderful organ and a Guardian Angel by Caravaggio. Text / Source: Quattro Stagioni, Piazza Cesare Battisti 14, IT-02100 Rieti RI Internet: https://www.hotelquattrostagionirieti.com/

Duomo di Santa Maria Assunta, Rieti The Cathedral of Saint Mary, Mother of God The Cathedral of Rieti, dedicated to Santa Maria Madre di Dio and commonly known as the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, was rebuilt on the foundations of the early Christian basilica, documented since the fifth century, between 1109 and 1225. The lower basilica, consecrated in 1157 and striking for its sober and composed forms, is divided into nine naves supported by columns made from the rubble of ancient Roman buildings, among which stands out a milestone of the consular salaria. The upper basilica, in which the architectural lines of the Romanesque plan have remained intact, demonstrates the radical changes resulting from the adaptation of liturgical norms and the change in tastes and styles. Of particular value is the decoration of the main portal, which interprets the motif of acanthus spirals, with clear classical assonance, reinterpreted in the Christian iconography of the Tree of Life. Text / Source: Official Tourist Portal of the City of Rieti https://www.visitrieti.com/2020/01/25/la-cattedrale-di-s-maria-madre-di-dio/

Quattro Stagioni, Piazza Cesare Battisti 14, Rieti RI The hotel is located in a restricted-traffic zone within the medieval walls that surround much of the city center, overlooking the Romanesque cathedral, in front of the magnificent Italian garden of Palazzo Vincentini, two minutes from Sabina Universitas and the shopping street, and in front of the elevator leading to the newly renovated Santa Lucia Cultural Center. The strategic location also allows visitors to walk to the center of Italy (Umbilicus Italiae, as Rieti's Marco Terenzio Varrone called it) in Piazza San Rufo, whose church houses a wonderful organ and a Guardian Angel by Caravaggio. Text / Source: Quattro Stagioni, Piazza Cesare Battisti 14, IT-02100 Rieti RI Internet: https://www.hotelquattrostagionirieti.com/

The abundance of water in the city of Rieti and the recurring floods of the Velino river also made it necessary to build a viaduct to raise the Salaria and cross the river with a solid stone bridge, the remains of which are still visible under the current bridge.

The three entrance portals to the cathedral and the bell tower maintain the original Romanesque style.

The patronage “SANTA MARIA ASSUNTA” (in German: “Assumption”) of the Episcopal Church (Cathedral) of Rieti refers to one of the many memorial or festival days in honor of the Mother of God Mary. It goes back to the festival of her physical assumption into heaven, which the (Catholic) Church celebrates annually on August 15th. In the Orthodox churches the feast is called the Dormition of the Virgin Mary. In many rural areas it is customary for bundles of herbs to be collected by the population on this day and blessed during the festival service.

The sanctuary of Santa Maria della Foresta is one of the four sanctuaries that celebrate the passage of San Francesco in the Reatina valley. According to some, it was precisely here that the Saint composed the Canticle of the Creatures. In this place there originally stood a small church dedicated to San Fabiano flanked by the priest's house alone. Legend has it that, during the period in which Saint Francis stayed here, many people from Rieti went to visit him, often picking bunches of grapes from the priest's vineyard. When it was time to collect the fruits for the harvest, the priest realized that there was very little left, nevertheless, encouraged by Saint Francis, he collected and harvested what little there was, however obtaining much more wine than in previous years. Of this episode, remembered as the "miracle of wine", traces can still be found inside the sanctuary: in fact, inside the domus there are the remains of a tank for pressing wine dating back to the period of the Saint's life.