The town of Nepi was founded with the name of Nepe 548 years before the birth of Rome.
In the Faliscan ager, at the borders with the territories of Veii and Ceres, the ancient center of Nepi stood on a tuff hill surrounded by two deep ravines within which are currently flowing the two streams Puzzolo and Falisco.
Along with the natural defenses over the centuries were also added fortifications and Etruscan, medieval and even renaissance walls, of which today there are still visible traces.
Due to its strategic position on the ancient Via Amerina, close to the impenetrable Cimina forest and the falisco/Etruscan territory, Nepi as well as its neighbor Sutri, suffered the consequences of the expansion of Rome upwards Lazio.
Conquered by the Romans in 383 A.C. Nepi was transformed into a stronghold and became the site of the first Roman colony in falisca. It was then subject to invasions by barbarians, strife between the Goths and Byzantines, and was even destroyed by the Lombards in 569.
After centuries of darkness, in 1131, it became a free city, the center of fighting between local noble families of the Orsini, of Vico and Colonna who were contending for its possession.
It lived the period of maximum splendor under the rule of the Borgia at frist and then the Farnese.
At the end of the fifteenth century, just under the Borgias, the fortress was built on a design by Antonio Sangallo the Elder, still visible at present and center of cultural events.
In the sixteenth century, Pier Luigi Farnese was named Duke of Nepi; his family brought improvements to the urban structure of the city and the Rocca dei Borgia until Nepi fell under the power of the Papal States, remaining as such until the Unification of Italy.
