About Capena –
street lamps on the Rocca
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for more information on a given subject
Capena is rich in history and there is evidence of its impressive past all around the village today. In particular, la Rocca (the Rock) is a former fortress and monastery, with a maze of narrow and picturesque alleys.
The villagers love an outdoor party and some kind of festival is held almost every month in Capena. Most of these events are long-established celebrations of saints’ days.
Although shopping amenties are limited, Capena has a marvellous selection of restaurants for its size, most of which are eminently affordable.
“A wonderful break. An excellent place. What a treasure old Capena is.
Full of character and characters!”
Sue Harper, UK
Old Capena in colour
Shown below: a brief clip from the 1952 film Totò a colori, the first Italian movie to be shot in colour. Click the central ‘play’ button to view.
The madcap action in the above scene whirls around Capena’s landmark fountain, the Fontana di Porta Nuova, close to Casa Marconi. Incidentally, this unorthodox fountain spouts water out of taps jutting from its rocky base, not from the font mounted on top. Except for the presence of parked cars and the absence of extras, this part of the old quarter (or ‘centro storico’ as the municipality calls it) has changed very little in almost sixty years, as this image from Google Street View shows:
The camera angle may need adjusting in some browsers, which you can do by clicking and dragging the image.
If you zoom out or swing the image around you can see the beginning of Via Marconi on the right, but it is evidently too narrow a thoroughfare for Google’s vehicle to have navigated.
A village or a town?
Throughout this website, you’ll mostly find Capena referred to as a ‘village’. However, with the construction of new residential estates (and a prestigious gallery of modern art) on its outskirts in recent years, the municipality’s population has grown rapidly and is now close to 10,000 – constituting a town by almost anyone’s standards.
Fortunately for visitors to the Casa Capena properties, these 21st-century developments have had almost no effect on the old quarter, which still looks and feels like an antiquated, sleepy village.
