San Polo dei Cavalieri

A land of ancient wisdoms, in Sabina any visitors will find extraordinary places filled with the flavor and traditions of craftsmanships. Castrum Sancti Pauli in Jana is the most ancient name with which it was appealed today's San Polo. The term is used in some papal bulls dated around the year 900. According to some it was founded by the Templars of the Order of Malta. San Polo dei Cavalieri is a typical medieval village, an old castle, in the low Sabina, near Tarano.

The end of the Saracen invasions and Hungarian and the collapse of the Carolingian Empire, lead to the emergence of fortified settlements concentrated: the castles. A social and economic model evolved and more durable than the peasant villages and the curtes which until then had characterized the landscape of Sabina, together with the early medieval Benedictine monasteries, like Farfa. The birth of these concentrated and fortified settlements was linked so strongly to the local gentry, largely Lombard, who, taking advantage of the dissolution of central power and the crisis of Farfa and cathedral of Viscovìo, looted and burned by the Saracens, had reorganized the rural population and had the appropriate rights stately Banna, now fragmented at local level. 

The castle of San Polo appeared for the first time in the documentation of Farfa, in January 1102. In 1368 the castle was given in fief, by the second masculine generation, by Pope Urban V, to Bucci and Francesco Orsini, the sons of deceased rector of Giordano heritage. Remained part, with various vicissitudes, of the heritage of the Orsini, the castle was confiscated in 1604 after the death of Enrico Orsini, the Marquis of Stimigliano. Since the early decades of the tenth century the rural landscape of Sabina changed very quickly.

The Castle of San Polo now has the form of a large rectangular body, with a central keep, beside which were backed four semi cylindrical towers. The castle underwent major transformations over the centuries, it seems that it already existed at the time of the Templars, under Orsini took on the appearance of the palace. Walking through the typical narrow streets of yold town, you can visit the parish church dedicated to St Nicola di Bari, built between the thirteenth and fourteenth century. in the middle of the sixteenth century, the ancient towerwas turned into a belfry. The interior has a single aisle, to the right of the main entrance is the painting of the Baptism of Jesus in the landscape background of the fresco shows the Castrum San Polo, with defensive towers and the original walls. The fresco dates from the late sixteenth century. The painting of the altar depicting St. Nicola is of the fifteenth century. The oldest church of San Polo which still remains almost intact its original form is the church of Saint Lucia, built inside the Castrum Sancti Pauli. As stated by the Statutes of the church bell tower was equipped since 1400.