In the early Middle Ages (530s), Centumcellae was a Byzantine stronghold. It became part of the Papal States in 728. As the port was raided by the Saracens in 813-814, 828, 846 and finally in 876, a new settlement in a more secure place was therefore built by order of Pope Leo VII as soon as 854. The Popes gave the settlement as a fief to several local lords, including the Count Ranieri of Civitacastellana and the Abbey of Farfa, and the Di Vico, who held Centumcellae in 1431. In that year, pope Eugene IV sent an army under cardinal Giovanni Vitelleschi and several condottieri (Niccolò Fortebraccio, Ranuccio Farnese and Menicuccio dell'Aquila among them) to recapture the place, which, after the payment of 4,000 florins, became thenceforth a full Papal possession, led by a vicar and a treasurer.
