Blera is a small town and ''
comune
A (; : , ) is an administrative division of Italy, roughly equivalent to a township or municipality. It is the third-level administrative division of Italy, after regions () and provinces (). The can also have the City status in Italy, titl ...
'' in the northern
Lazio
Lazio ( , ; ) or Latium ( , ; from Latium, the original Latin name, ) is one of the 20 Regions of Italy, administrative regions of Italy. Situated in the Central Italy, central peninsular section of the country, it has 5,714,882 inhabitants an ...
region of
Italy
Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...
. It was known during the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...
as Bieda, an evolved form of its ancient name, which was restored in the twentieth century. It is the birthplace of
Pope Sabinian;
Pope Paschal II was also originally thought to be from here.
It is situated on a long, narrow tongue of rock at the junction of two deep glens.
[ This cites ]
History
In ancient times, Blera was an
Etruscan town on the
Via Clodia. It was of little importance, and is known to be mentioned only by geographers and in inscriptions.
[
In 772, it was destroyed by the Lombards of King Desiderius. In the thirteenth-fifteenth centuries, it belonged to the Di Vico family. In 1247 the army of Frederick II ravaged it. In the fifteenth century, Pope Boniface IX gave Blera to the Anguillara family, who owned it until 1572, apart from a short period from 1465 under direct Papal control. Later it followed the history of the Papal States.
]
Main sights
Some remains of the town walls still exist, and also two ancient bridges, both belonging to the Via Clodia, and many tombs hewn in the rock with small chambers imitating the architectural forms of houses, and beams and rafters represented in relief.[
]
Selvasecca di Blera
Eric Berggren and the Swedish Institute in Rome excavated a Republican period rural structure or villa at the site of Selvasecca di Blera between 1965 and 1967, with preliminary results published in 1969.
References
External links
Official website
(Chapter 17 of ''Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria'')
Etruscan sites
Hilltowns in Lazio
{{Lazio-geo-stub