Otricoli is a town and comune in the province of Terni, Umbria, central Italy. It is located on the Via Flaminia, near the east bank of the Tiber, some 70 km north of Rome and 20 km south of Narni.
It was originally the ancient Umbrian city of Ocriculum.
Name
The name Otricoli derives from Ocre, later Latinized as Ocriculum and then Otricolum.
The name appears in several forms, including Ὄκρικλοι, Ὀκρίκολα, Ocriculum, and later Utriculum. The corruption of the original name appears to have begun at a very early period, since the form Utriculum is already found in the Itineraries and in certain manuscripts of classical authors. From this form the modern name Otricoli developed.
History
Antiquity
Ocriculum was an important Umbrian city. Livy records that in 308 BC Ocriculum separated from the other cities of the Umbrian Confederation and concluded an alliance with Rome. This is the only information concerning the city prior to the Roman conquest of Umbria.
The vegetation is considered less prosperous and vigorous than is generally observed in Umbria. A few miles away began the Roman Campagna.
In 2021, 284 people lived in rural dispersed dwellings not assigned to any named locality. The central nave is entered through a doorway above which stand the choir gallery and a Renaissance organ. Within it is the Crypt of Saint Medico, an ancient underground space formerly used as a monastic retreat and containing a Baroque altar. The presbytery area lies beyond. At the center of the apse wall is a stained-glass window by the Otricoli painter Roberto Maurini, beneath which stands a 15th-century wooden choir with inlay decoration arranged in a horseshoe shape. The high altar, of Umbrian school and dated to the 12th–13th centuries, includes a 16th-century marble ciborium whose columns reuse Roman material.