Palestrina Culture

Palestrina's culture rests on two names that travelled much further than the town did.

The first is the road. The Via Prenestina is named after the town, because the ancient name of the city was Praeneste — so a street sign in Rome carries this hill town's Latin name.

The second is a composer. Palestrina is the birthplace of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, who took the town's name as his own and carried it into the history of European music.

Underneath both is the sanctuary. An oracular sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia, monumentalised at the end of the second century BC, made this a destination in antiquity, and the fact that the modern town is carried on its terraces means the relationship has never been broken.

There is also a long memory of rivalry. Praeneste was rich and prosperous while Rome was still emerging, felt superior to the other Latin towns, and became Rome's most hated rival — a self-image that outlasted the city's defeat.

And a trauma: in 82 BC Sulla exterminated all the male citizens and replaced them with a military colony, after which the epigraphic record of the town's family names changes.