Editing Tivoli, Lazio (section)

==History==
[[Gaius Julius Solinus]] cites [[Cato the Elder]]'s lost ''Origines'' for the story that the city of '''Tibur''' was founded by Catillus the Arcadian, a son of [[Amphiaraus]], who came there having escaped the slaughter at [[Thebes, Greece]]. Catillus and his three sons Tiburtus, Coras, and Catillus{{efn-lr|In the ''[[Aeneid]]'', [[Virgil]] makes Coras and the younger Catillus twin brothers and the leaders of a Tiburtine military force in support of [[Turnus]].}} drove out the [[Siculi]] from the Aniene plateau and founded a city they named Tibur in honor of Tiburtus.<ref>''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography'', vol. II, pp. 1200–1205 ("Tibur").</ref> According to another account, Tibur was a colony of [[Alba Longa]]. Historical traces of settlement in the area date back to the thirteenth century BC. ''Tibur'' may share a common root with the river [[Tiber]] and the Latin [[praenomen]] ''[[Tiberius (praenomen)|Tiberius]]''.<ref>Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", p. 154.</ref>

From [[Etruscans|Etruscan]] times Tibur, a [[Sabine]] city, was the seat of the [[Tiburtine Sibyl]]. There are two small temples above the falls, the rotunda traditionally associated with [[Vesta (mythology)|Vesta]] and the rectangular one with the Sibyl of Tibur, whom [[Marcus Terentius Varro|Varro]] calls ''[[Albunea]]'', the water nymph who was worshipped on the banks of the Aniene as a tenth Sibyl added to the nine mentioned by the Greek writers. In the nearby woods, [[Faunus]] had a sacred grove. During the [[Ancient Rome|Roman age]] Tibur maintained a certain importance, being on the way (the [[Via Tiburtina]], extended as the [[Via Valeria]]) that Romans had to follow to cross the mountain regions of the [[Apennine Mountains|Apennines]] towards the [[Abruzzo]], the region where lived some of its fiercest enemies such as [[Volsci]], [[Sabines]], and [[Samnites]].

===Roman age===

At first an independent ally of [[History of Rome|Rome]], Tibur allied itself with the [[Gauls]] in 361 BC. Vestiges remain of its defensive walls of this period, in ''opus quadratum''. In 338 BC, however, Tibur was defeated and absorbed by the Romans. The city acquired Roman citizenship in 90 BC and became a resort area famed for its beauty and its good water, and was enriched by many [[Roman villa]]s. The most famous one, of which the ruins remain, is the ''Villa Adriana'' ([[Hadrian's Villa]]). [[Maecenas]] and [[Augustus]] also had villas at Tibur, and the poet [[Horace]] had a modest villa: he and [[Catullus]] and [[Statius]] all mention Tibur in their poems.  In 273, [[Zenobia]], the captive queen of [[Palmyra]], was assigned a residence here by the Emperor [[Aurelian]]. The second-century temple of Hercules Victor is being excavated. The present Piazza del Duomo occupies the Roman forum.

In 547, in the course of the [[Gothic War (535–552)|Gothic War]], the city was fortified by the Byzantine general [[Belisarius]], but was later destroyed by [[Totila]]'s army. After the end of the war it became a Byzantine duchy, later absorbed into the [[Papal States|Patrimony of St. Peter]]. After Italy was conquered by [[Charlemagne]], Tivoli was under the authority of a count, representing the emperor.

====Roman gentes with origins in Tibur====

* [[Coponia (gens)]]
* [[Cossinia (gens)]]
* [[Rabiria gens]]
* [[Rubellia gens]]

===Middle Ages===
From the tenth century onwards, Tivoli, as an independent commune governed by its elected consuls, was the fiercest rival of Rome in the struggle for the control over the impoverished central Lazio. Emperor [[Otto III, Holy Roman Emperor|Otto III]] conquered it in 1001, and Tivoli fell under the [[Papal States|papal]] control. Tivoli however managed to keep a level of independence until the 15th century: symbols of the city's strength were the Palace of Arengo, the ''Torre del Comune'' and the church of St. Michael, all built in this period, as well as the new line of walls (authorized in 1155), needed to house the increasing population. Reminders of the internal turbulence of communal life are the tower houses that may be seen in Vicolo dei Ferri, Via di Postera, Via del Seminario and Via del Colle.

In the 13th century Rome imposed a tribute on the city, and gave itself the right to appoint a count to govern it in conjunction with the local consuls. In the fourteenth century, Tivoli sided with the [[Guelphs and Ghibellines|Guelphs]] and strongly supported [[Pope Urban VI|Urban VI]] against [[Antipope Clement VII]]. King [[Ladislaus of Naples]] was twice repulsed from the city, as was the [[Condottieri|condottiero]] [[Braccio da Montone]].

In the city there was also a [[Jewish community of Tivoli|Jewish community]].<ref>''Lazio Itinerari ebraici''.</ref><ref>Sebastiani, ''Viaggio a Tivoli'', p. 108.</ref>

[[File:Rocca Pia et amphithéatre de Bleso.JPG|thumb|The castle of Rocca Pia, built in 1461 by [[Pope Pius II]], and the Roman  amphitheatre]]

=== Renaissance ===
During the [[Renaissance]], popes and cardinals did not limit their embellishment program to Rome; they also erected buildings in Tivoli. In 1461 [[Pope Pius II]] built the massive Rocca Pia to control the always restive population, and as a symbol of the permanence of papal temporal power here.

From the sixteenth century the city saw further construction of villas. The most famous of these is the [[Villa d'Este]], a [[World Heritage Site]], whose construction was started in 1550 by [[Pirro Ligorio]] for Cardinal [[Ippolito II d'Este]] and which was richly decorated with an ambitious program of [[fresco]]es by painters of late Roman Mannerism, such Girolamo Muziano, [[Livio Agresti]] (a member of the "[[Forlì painting school]]") or [[Federico Zuccari]]. In 1527 Tivoli was sacked by bands of the supporters of the [[Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor|emperor]] and the [[Colonna family|Colonna]], important archives being destroyed during the attack. In 1547 it was again occupied, by the [[Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alba|Duke of Alba]] in a war against [[Pope Paul IV|Paul IV]], and in 1744 by the [[Austria]]ns.

In 1835 [[Pope Gregory XVI]] added the [[Villa Gregoriana]], a villa complex pivoting around the Aniene's falls. The "Great Waterfall" was created through a tunnel in the Monte Catillo, to give an outlet to the waters of the Aniene sufficient to preserve the city from inundations like the devastating flood of 1826.

===Modern times===
In 1944, Tivoli suffered heavy damage under an [[Allies of World War II|Allied]] bombing, which destroyed the [[Jesuit]] Church of Jesus.<ref>[https://www.academia.edu/7118133 Seventieth anniversary of the bombing of Tivoli.] In Italian.</ref>