LE STRADE DEI PARCHI - Naturainviaggio.It

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Tratto VICOVARO - JENNE
Jenne Subiaco
Following the route towards Subiaco, after a couple of hairpin bends there’s a sharp
bend on the left where a valley floor asphalt road must be taken. After 500 metres
the road widens and it is possible to go down, on the right, along a pedestrian trail
that leads to the Aniene river, crosses a wooden bridge and, once on the other side,
turns on the left for about 200 meters.
Here we come to the small Lake of S. Benedict that interrupts the course of the river
as a turquoise sheet of water, clear and fresh, supplied by a little waterfall among
the rocks and surrounded by a thick vegetation.
Going back to the widening it is possible to carry on along the road for 500 metres
in order to reach the Coleman Trail, an excursion equipped route with a length of
over 100 kilometres, divided in 48 stages, that runs along the same way that Enrico
Coleman, Italian English painter of the late XIX century, used to walk through the
mountains from Subiaco to Tivoli.
Back again on the road to Subiaco where, in a few metres, one gets by the ruins of
Nero’s Villa, completely fenced, that represent a small fragment of what once used to
be a great buildings complex dedicated
to recreation and idleness of this
contradictory Roman Emperor.
In 54 a.C., in order to realize this
great work, some rocky slopes were excavated
and the Aniene course was
dammed in three different points,
creating the same number of lakes
whose shores could reflect the various
constructions.
Subiaco is the final destination of the route and also the main town to be met, a
sort of “capital” of the high valley of the Aniene river. The name derives from the
Latin words sub lacum since it rose just below the lakes realized by Nero for his Villa,
nowadays completely vanished.
One enters the town from the eastern side, looking at the shape of the old town centre
perched on a hill and dominated by the Abbey Fortress. Built in 1073 by the
Benedictine monks, this fortress was for centuries the symbol of a feudal authority
that concentrated not only spiritual but also political and civil aspects.
Among the several deputies that ruled the place was, at the end of the XV century,
Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, the future Pope Alexander VI. He hosted in the fortress
for several years his mistress that here gave birth to the famous offsprings Cesare and
Lucrezia, destined to be among the most controversial historical figures of the “Italian
Cinquecento”.
The other important access to the town, on the western side, is adorned by the presence
of the mediaeval bridge of S. Francis, of the XIV century, and of a Triumphal
Arch erected by the population in 1787 in honour of Pope Pio VI.