Tolfa

Infobox CityIT
img_coa = Tolfa-Stemma.gif
official_name = Comune di Tolfa
name =Tolfa
region = Lazio
province = Rome (RM)
elevation_m = 484
area_total_km2 = 167.56
population_as_of = 2007All demographics and other statistics: Italian statistical institute Istat.]
population_total = 5133
population_density_km2 =
timezone = CET, UTC+1
coordinates = coord|42|08|59|N|11|56|12|E|type:city(16,311)_region:IT
frazioni = Santa Severa Nord
telephone = 0766
postalcode = 00059
gentilic = Tolfetani
saint =St. Giles
day = September 1
mayor =Alessandro Battilocchio
website = [http://www.comuneditolfa.it/ www.comuneditolfa.it]
mapy = 11.94
mapx = 42.15

Tolfa is a town and "comune" of the Province of Rome, Italy, to the ENE of Civitavecchia by road.

It is the main center in the Tolfa Mountains, an extinct volcanic group between Civitavecchia and the Lake of Bracciano.

History

A town of medieval origin in the orbit of Viterbo, it was assumed into the Papal States and granted first to the Capocci family, and then to the Roman nobles Ludovico and Pietro Frangipani who walled the community. Tolfa suddenly achieved an important role by the discovery there in 1461 of large deposits of alum, with the result that direct control was assumed, after some confrontations with the Frangipani, by the Camera Apostolica. Alum was an essential mordant in the textile industry, which was central to the Late Medieval and Early Modern Italian economy. Previously, the only supplies of alum were imported from the East, from sources controlled by the Ottoman Turks, through Venice, which profited greatly. Suddenly, the monopoly of alum shifted to the Papacy, which controlled Tolfa; Pope Pius II placed its distribution solely in the hands of the Medici, with the explicit thought that the income from this monopoly should be devoted to the Christian "res publica" as the infidel Turk, elated by his victories, threatened to devour Christendom. [Papal brief of 17 June 1472 commissioning Doimenico Albergati to treat with the Flemish cloth towns, quoted in F. Saxl, "A Marsilio Ficino Manuscript Written in Bruges in 1475, and the Alum Monopoly of the Popes" "Journal of the Warburg Institute" 1.1 (July 1937), pp. 61-62. The possibility of alum profits financing a crusade against the Ottomans, pressed by Pius at the Council of Mantua (1459), was no longer an active possibility in 1472.] Later the monopoly in extraction of alum at Tolfa passed as a papal gidt to Agostino Chigi.

In 1530, Pope Clement VII granted the status of a commune to Tolfa, which had outgrown its medieval walls. In later times Tolfa continued to be supported by the extraction of alum. Near the mine the workmen's village of Allumiere was built, which became an autonomous commune in 1826.

Main sights

*Remains of the walls and of the Frangipani castle ("Rocca di Tolfa"), destroyed by the French troops in 1799 after the city had rebelled against the Roman Republic.
*Town Hall, housing a collection of Etruscan and Roman antiquities discovered nearby.

Twin towns

*flagicon|Ireland Dingle, Ireland
*flagicon|Malta Għajnsielem, Malta

Notes

References

*1911