Celléno is an Italian town of 1 297 inhabitants in the province of Viterbo, in Lazio; located between Lake Bolsena and Lake Alviano, it is 20 km from Viterbo to the north and 25 km from Orvieto to the south.
The origins of the Celleno Castle (Borgo Fantasma)
However, the coat of arms of the Municipality of Celleno shows a natural harpy on a blue field, within a shield decorated with a fluttering list: this heraldic symbol was adopted relatively recently, not before the Unification of Italy, on the the basis of the suggestive but less founded hypothesis that the name of the center derives from that of one of the mythological Harpies.
The term “Il Castello di Celleno” (Borgo Fantasma) is generally called the intra-moenia monumental complex, that is the urban perimeter lying on the tufaceous plateau delimited to the south by the civic walls and to the north by the natural slope.
The abandoned village is still an intricate maze of alleys that lead up to what remains of the ancient castle, after passing the scenic Via del Ponte, narrow streets overlooked by small houses without plaster and the remains of stone buildings of basalt. The castle has been through all sorts of things: it knew the ups and downs of the rivalry between the families of Guelphs and Ghibellines; in the 15th century it became a possession of the Gatti family and then was a fief of the Orsini, a family from which it still takes its name.
The Municipality of Celleno, together with the startup Hubstract - Made For Art and the University of Tuscia, supported by the Lazio Region, have recently presented a project for the recovery and redevelopment of the village called "The Ghost Village of Celleno". An interactive model tells the history and peculiarities of Celleno, complete with a logo, display panels and folding brochure and an idea for the development of widespread hospitality and the continuation of archaeological, historical and geophysical studies of the place. Celleno could therefore become a new Civita di Bagnoregio.
The origin of Celleno Nuovo
Piazza della Repubblica constitutes the administrative and social center of the new urbanization of Celleno, born in the 1930s and made necessary by the progressive erosion of the tuff cliff on which the ancient center stands. The instability of the ground was attested since the sixteenth century when, in the Celleno Statute written in 1572, in order not to further weaken the tuffaceous mass, penalties were prescribed for those who dug pits for divers. The sources continue to testify during the seventeenth century situations of collapses and unsafe houses, until the disastrous earthquake that hit the Teverina and in particular Bagnoregio, in 1695, imposed drastic measures: the excavation of the cellars inside the castle was forbidden and the reconstruction of the castle walls and the damaged houses of the Piazzarella and Ripa districts.
The Borgata Luigi Razza
On March 18, 1951 the city council decreed the definitive abandonment of the ancient center of Celleno, perched on a tufaceous cliff subject to continuous collapses.
For the inhabitants forced to leave the old houses, the construction of a new settlement began, of which the Borgata Luigi Razza, built by the Civil Engineers in the 1930s, constitutes the original nucleus.
Ghost Village Celleno
Address: Celleno, SP11, 01020
Phone: +39 0761 912002
Site:
https://comune.celleno.vt.it/Location inserted by
Laura Lucibello