CERFE´NNIA
CERFE´NNIA a town of the Marsi, not mentioned by Pliny or the other geographers, but placed by the Itineraries on the Via Valeria, 13 miles from Alba Fucensis, and 17 from Corfinium. Its site is fixed by Holstenius at the foot of the hill on which stands the modern village of
Coll‘ Armeno, where an old church of
Sta Felicità still bears in ecclesiastical records the adjunct
in Cerfenna. It was at the foot of the remarkable pass over the Apennines called in the Tabula the Mons Imeus (now the
Forca Caruso), which led from thence to Corfinium. From an inscription published by Holstenius (Orell.
Inscr. 711) we learn that this part of the Via Valeria was first constructed, or at least rendered passable for carriages, by the emperor Claudius, who continued it from
Cerfennia to the Adriatic at the mouth of the Aternus. (Itin. Ant. p. 309; Tab. Peut.; Holsten.
Not. in Cluv. pp. 153, 154; D'Anville,
Anal. Géogr. de l'Italie, p. 175; Kramer,
Fuciner See, pp. 60, 61.) For the discussion of the distances along this route, see
VIA VALERIA [
E.H.B]
