FERENTUM. — The Etruscan Ferento, between the deep ravines of the Acqua and Vezzarella streams, was a prosperous city in the time of Augustus and the birthplace of the emperor Otho and of Flavia Domitilla, Titus’s mother. The Christian cemetery of S. Eutizio, with an inscription dated
359 (CIL, XI, 1, 3054 to 3056), and, if they belong to Ferento, a Christian seal and ring, dated by De Rossi to the third or fourth 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 at the Council of 487. At the Roman Synod of 649 a bishop of F. Polymartium signed his name, and in those of 680–681 there is a prelate of Polymartium, corresponding to Bomarzo, subject to Byzantine rule; according to Duchesne, in the sixth or seventh century the bishop of F. is said to have withdrawn there because of the Lombard invasion, retaining under his jurisdiction the part of the diocese that remained Roman. Subsequently it followed the fortunes of the episcopate of Bomarzo, which in turn was united with that of Bagnoregio in the eleventh century.
In 1172 F. was destroyed by the people of Viterbo, who accused the Ferentani of the heresy of Cerdo. The theatre, a hippodrome, and, on the slope of the hill, the remains of a church from the ninth or tenth century dedicated to St. Boniface, bishop of F. (Greg., Dial., I, 9), still remain. In episcopal catalogues, F. is not infrequently confused with Ferentinum in the province of Frosinone.