Tivoli

Tibur, as the Romans called it, was a Sabine town on the route from Rome over the Apennines, and legend credited its founding to Catillus, a Greek who had escaped the slaughter at Thebes, and his sons; another account made it a colony of Alba Longa. Its oldest settlement stood on the hill now called San Paolo, before the inhabitants moved closer to the river and the acropolis above the falls. The town was the seat of the Tiburtine Sibyl, honoured as a tenth Sibyl, and two small temples above the falls are traditionally linked with her and with Vesta. At first an independent ally of Rome, Tibur sided with the Gauls in 361 BC and was defeated and absorbed in 338 BC.

Under Rome it became a fashionable retreat. Maecenas and Augustus had villas here, the poet Horace a modest one, and Catullus and Statius mentioned the town in their poems; around AD 120 the emperor Hadrian built his vast villa on the plain below. The great sanctuary of Hercules Victor, a centre of commerce and religion, stood outside the walls.

In the Middle Ages the town backed the emperor Frederick Barbarossa, who strengthened its walls, and its feuding factions, led by the Colonna and Orsini, were finally subdued when Pope Pius II built the Rocca Pia in 1461. Cardinals and popes made it a resort again: Cardinal Ippolito d'Este laid out the Villa d'Este in the 16th century, and after a devastating flood in 1826 Pope Gregory XVI diverted the Aniene through a tunnel in Monte Catillo, creating the Great Waterfall, and opened the Villa Gregoriana in 1835. In the 20th century industry — rubber, travertine quarrying and paper mills — drew new residents and the town spread over the plain.

Tivoli's identity rests on its villas and its water. The Villa d'Este's fountains and the Aniene falls lent the town's name to pleasure gardens abroad, among them the Jardin de Tivoli in Paris and the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen. The Temple of Vesta's capitals were so admired that a variant of the Corinthian order is sometimes called the Tivoli order, and the temple inspired copies in English and French gardens and buildings.

The religious calendar is strong. On 10 August the town processes for its patron, San Lorenzo, with historical scenes from his life, and on 14 and 15 August comes the Inchinata, a festival dating from the Middle Ages in which two ancient images, of the Virgin and of the Saviour, are carried to meet each other. The Sagra del Pizzutello celebrates the local grape, with residents in traditional dress offering it through the streets, and each July the Along Came Jazz festival brings together jazz, classical and folk music.

The old dialect of Tivoli survives mainly in the historic centre; younger people, especially in the districts nearest Rome, now speak a form of Roman.

About 55,000 people live in the comune of Tivoli, which is becoming an extension of the Rome conurbation along the Via Tiburtina. Many live not in the hilltop old town but in the districts that spread below it, such as Tivoli Terme and Villa Adriana.

Tivoli's quarries produce travertine, the white stone used in most of Rome's monuments, and in the 20th century rubber factories and paper mills brought workers and rapid urban growth to the districts below the town. The sulphurous springs of the Aquae Albulae at Tivoli Terme have been used since antiquity. Tourism centres on the two UNESCO villas and the gorge park, and the town is busy with day visitors from Rome, especially at weekends.

The old town keeps the rhythm of a provincial Italian centre, with shops closing in the early afternoon, an evening stroll and Sunday lunches, while the plain below lives at the pace of the capital's commuter belt.

Tivoli's food is that of Lazio. Roman pastas — cacio e pepe, and gricia, carbonara and amatriciana, built on guanciale and pecorino romano — are the classics of the region, along with porchetta, a savoury boneless pork roast, and abbacchio, a lamb dish. The offal tradition of Roman cooking gives coda alla vaccinara, oxtail cooked the butchers' way, and spring brings globe artichokes, peas and fava beans to the table, with pecorino romano and ricotta the cheeses of the region. Pizza al taglio, sold by the slice, is the everyday snack.

The town's own speciality is the pizzutello, a variety of table grape grown on the fertile soils below the waterfall, which the town celebrates at its Sagra del Pizzutello, when residents in traditional costume offer and sell the grapes through the streets. Frascati, the white wine of the Castelli Romani, is iconic of Lazio, and trattorias in the historic centre and near the Villa d'Este serve day visitors and locals alike.