We are on the Lake Posta Fibreno, From above, in a stretch of water on the eastern side, the so-called floating island is visible, an island formed by ancient vegetation. Depending on where the wind had placed it, the Postese farmers got up at dawn and were able to know whether it would soon be raining or sunny and thus decide whether to go to the field or stay at home.
In 4 B.C., Dionysius of Halicarnassus tells us of pre-Hellenic civilisations and a people, the Pelasgians, of Greece and Asia Minor (Turkey) between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age. A Pacific people and archaeologists find no mass graves, no violent deaths, no weapons in the grave goods of their tombs. Indo-European peoples arrived with bronze weapons, drove them from their lands and this happened 18 generations before the destruction of Troy: the Achaeans, those of the Cretan-Mycenaean civilisation, those of myth, the Iliad and the Odyssey. The Pelasgians, fleeing, consulted the oracle of Dodona, a sanctuary city in Epirus, where priestesses interpreted the future from the movement of oak and beech leaves. The Oracle was peremptory: “Happy times will return where you will find the floating island”.
This island was located by ancient Latin writers on Lake Paderno in the province of Rieti near the city of Cutilia and next to the temple of the goddess Vittoria, both of which have disappeared into thin air. It just so happens that on the Lake Posta Fibreno a locality is referred to as “Le Codigliane” and that the patron saint of Posta Fibreno is Santa Vittoria and important cults are Madonna delle Vittorie and San Vittorino.
We know that Christianity replaced its pagan cults with its own, so we like to tell this legend, bearing in mind that Lake Paderno is the lake where the island may have been but is no longer, while on our lake it is there and it is as if history had wanted to hand it over to us, the descendants of those peoples, so that none of us indigenous to Lazio would lose the memory of who we are. And here is our Floating Island in the middle of Paradise: the Lake Posta Fibreno. And all around is a blossoming of strong and ancient cities, all with megalithic walls, the work of this people of myth, the Pelasgians, and testifying to the grandeur of our roots: Atina, Alatri, Arpino, Ferentino, Segni and Norma to name the best preserved, but just about everywhere in the surrounding towns here. Come and admire these unique wonders, we are of noble and ancient origins in the land of the five miracles.
Giuliano Fabi