The history of the current Castel Giubileo dates back directly to the ancient city of
Fidenae which, based on archaeological evidence, was built around the 11th century BC in an extremely important strategic position between Via Salaria and
Via Nomentana. From here, it dominated the commercial routes between
Etruria,
Sabina and southern Italy, as well as the navigable stretch of the Tiber, where the commercial traffic took place. The settlement, surrounded by walls, extended its control to the area of
Monte Sacro and was flourishing – above all because of the fertility of the soil, due to the proximity to the river and the presence of volcanic debris or
tuffs) – even before the foundation of Rome. In 1280 the area belonged to the monastery of St. Cyriacus. Later, the castle (
castrum) was purchased by
Pope Boniface VIII, maybe with the proceeds from the 1300
Jubilee. It is commonly assumed that this is the origin of the name
Castel Giubileo, although the name actually derives from the Giubilei family from the
rione Trevi, to which a Buzio di Giubileo belonged still in 1371. Due to the strategic importance of its location, the
condottiero Paolo Orsini attacked and occupied it in 1406. Stories of looting and depredations continued in the following periods, thus leading to the complete abandonment of the Castle until the end of the 19th century, when it began to be used for agricultural purposes. The present urban settlement was built after
World War II by immigrants coming from many
Italian regions, including the first
Venetian farmhands, called by
Mussolini for the reclamation of the Ager Romanus.
The Castel Giubileo train wreck On 12 August 1900, at. 11:51 pm, the area was the scene of a serious
train wreck, which occurred along the Florence-Rome railway. A failure to report a train, which had stopped due to a breakdown, caused a rear-end collision with twenty victims and a hundred injured. The disaster had great resonance at the time, as the crashed train was transporting the foreign delegations who had just attended the funeral of King
Umberto I and the subsequent coronation of
Victor Emmanuel III. Among the victims was the Baron Giuseppe Baratelli, Senator of the Kingdom, to whom
Alfredo Oriani dedicated his book
Ombre di occaso. Other notable passengers involved in the wreck were the Duke of Oporto, the Turkish delegation and the representative of the King of Belgium, who suffered the fracture of both legs. == Geography ==