Ferentum

FERENTUM. - Etruscan Ferento, among the deep ravines of the Acqua and Vezzarella ditches, was a prosperous city in the time of Augustus and the birthplace of the emperor Otho and of Flavia Domitilla, mother of Titus. The Christian cemetery of St. Eutizio, with an inscription of 359 (CIL, XI, 1, 3054 to 3056) and, if they belong to Ferento, a Christian seal and ring, attributed by De Rossi to the 3rd or 4th century and found in the territory of Viterbo (Bull. d'Arch. Crist., 2 [1871], pp. 35-37), are the most remote Christian testimonies, since the first certain bishop, Maxima Ferentissis, appears in the Council of 487. In the Roman Synod of 649 a bishop of F. Polymartium subscribes, and in those of 680-81 there is a prelate of Polymartium, corresponding to Bomarzo, subject to Byzantine domination, where, in the 6th or 7th century, according to Duchesne, the bishop of F. would have withdrawn, because of the Lombard invasion, keeping in his obedience the part of the diocese that remained Roman. Subsequently it follows the fortunes of the episcopate of Bomarzo, which in turn in the 11th century was united with that of Bagnoregio.

In 1172 F. was destroyed by the Viterbese, who accused the Ferentani of the heresy of Cerdo. There remain the theater, a hippodrome on the slope of the hill, and remains of the church of the 9th-10th century, dedicated to St. Boniface bishop of F. (Greg., Dial., I, 9). In the episcopal catalogs there is not infrequently confusion between F. and Ferentinum in the province of Frosinone.

Alberto Galietti