Onano (VT) stands on a tuff rock spur in the monti Volsini area, very close to the Lazio-Tuscan border. Despite its small size, the village has a history that stretches back centuries to the Etruscan era. Artefacts suggest that the entire area was an agricultural settlement. In the Middle Ages it was the centre for events deriving from the war between the Guelfs and Ghibellines and the dispute between the Pontifical State and local lords. In those years the borgo was dominated by the Monaldeschi family, later the Sforzas controlled the area for a long time, bringing many improvements to the village. After the Sforzas, dominion passed back to the Church and later to the Dukes of Onano.
The most important monuments from the Middle Ages are the Romanesque Church della Madonna delle Grazie, restyled and embellished in the 14th century; the Church of the Holy Cross, present in the 12th century, which suffered bomb damage in 1944 and was totally rebuilt in 1956; and Palazzo Madama, a fortress built in the centre of the village in the mid 1300s, destroyed by Landsknechts and later recreated by Corrado da Cervara. The Church of Santa Maria della Concezione, dating to 1784, conserves the funeral urns of the patron saints Tryphon and Columba.
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