The Cicolano area is located in the heart of the Lazio Apennines and takes its name from the people of the "Equicoli" or Equi, who occupied these mountainous cliffs and these plateaus already 2500 years ago, before the Roman conquest
The Equi were a people of shepherds settled in this territory, bordering on Sabina, which includes the Lazio Apennines reliefs, next to Abruzzo's border; they had occupied the valley that, recently, , in 1940, would have been signed, by the creation of the Salto artificial lake, due to a dam built on the homonimous river. The richness of these territories was and today still is, represented by the wide karst plateaus located at an average altitude of about 1200 meters, the only semi-flat areas, of a certain size, where a meagre mountain agriculture is practicable, in a context of harsh and steep mountainous reliefs , covered with thick woods and humid and narrow valley bottoms. This landscape, in its general features, has remained unchanged for centuries up to the present day: still today, in fact, woods on the hills and pastures / crops on the highlands, are the dominant features. The Rascino plateau is called the "little Castelluccio", also because, thanks to the flat morphology, cultivations have developed, over time, of lentils , elected as a Slow Food presidium, together with ancient local wheats varieties and boundless meadows, that light up, in spring, with colors creating a truly fairytale scenery. At the plateau's edge, the Rascino Lake shines, a water body rich in wild life, which is part of a karst system, in connection with the Rieti springs that supply the Capital, Rome, with water. All around a landscape a fields and grass extends, dotted with shepherds' houses, used in the summer transhumance seasons as a home, dairy and night livestock shelter. Cattle has always been threatened by wolves, that today have come back to peep from the slopes. Traditional houses have a sober, peasant origin and fascinate for the high enclosure walls, ingeniously built to defend cattle from wolves.
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