Every design for Monterotondo

Monterotondo is known first of all for the hill it is named after: a round height that its first settlers chose because it was easy to defend, and that later made the town a strategic point on the Via Salaria for the defence of Rome. It was held for centuries by the Orsini, whose palace still has frescoed rooms, and the town earned a silver medal for military valour for the way its people resisted during the Second World War.

The town stands above the Tiber valley in the Metropolitan City of Rome, where the Roman countryside meets the Sabine hills and the old Via Salaria and Via Nomentana cross. A green belt of woodland and farmland surrounds it, from the Macchia del Barco and the Macchia della Gattaceca to the fields of Tor Mancina and Valle Ricca, while streams such as the Fosso della Fiora cut down towards the river plain. Down in the valley, Monterotondo Scalo grew around the railway to Rome, and the town is also home to the Rome outstation of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, a centre for mouse genetics.

Up on top, the Arco di San Rocco leads into the old streets, and the Duomo Santa Maria Maddalena still crowns the round hill that gave the town its name.