La Torretta della Bufalotta: silent witness to a lost landscape. In the 1890s, the Dominican Father Peter Paul Mackey located the remains of the protohistoric settlement of Crustumerium, on a small hill ca. 15 km north of Rome crowned by picturesque ruins, amongst which the medieval so-called Torretta (tower) della Bufalotta. His identification was close yet incorrect. As was shown in the 1970s, Crustumerium lay some 450 m to the northwest. In this article, we delve into the remains of this torretta – which in fact was never a tower – and its surrounding surface materials which, taken together, testify to a complicated history spanning more than 2000 years.
