A Study of the Topography and Municipal History of Praeneste by Ralph Van Deman Magoffin
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page 8 of 139 (05%)
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outside her proper territorial domain.
In 1043, when Emilia, a descendant of the Stefania mentioned above, married Stefano di Colonna, Count of Tusculum, Praeneste's territory seems to have been enlarged again to its former extent, because in 1080 at Emilia's death, Pope Gregory VII excommunicated the Colonna because they insisted upon retaining the Praenestine territory which had been given as a fief to Stefania, and which upon Emilia's death should have reverted to the Church.[7] We get a glance again at the probable size of the Praenestine diocese in 1190, from the fact that the fortieth bishop of Praeneste was Giovanni Anagnino de' Conti di Segni (1190-1196),[8] and this seems to imply a further extension of the diocese to the southeast down the Trerus (Sacco) valley. Again, in 1300 after the papal destruction of Palestrina, the government of the city was turned over to Cardinal Ranieri, who was to hold the city and its castle (mons), the mountain and its territory. At this time the diocese comprised the land as far as Artena (Monte Fortino) and and Rocca Priora, one of the towns in the Alban Hills, and to Castrum Novum Tiburtinum, which may well be Corcolle.[9] The natural limits of the ancient city proper can hardly be mistaken. The city included not only the arx and that portion of the southern slope of the mountain which was walled in, but also a level piece of fertile ground below the city, across the present Via degli Arconi. This piece of flat land has an area about six hundred yards square, the natural boundaries of which are: on the west, the deep bed of the watercourse spanned by the Ponte dei Sardoni; on the east, the cut over |
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