It in the Duchy of Atri, which is part of the Kingdom, seen high in the hills, two miles away from the sea, and eighteen from the city of Teramo.

The air you breathe is very healthy and enjoys a surprising horizon, dominating by much of the Papal States (le Marche).” According to Pliny the Elder in his Natural Historia,[4] in ancient times, in the territory of greater Colonnella stood the Liburnic city of Truentum, now believed to be in the current Colle della Civita[5] Archaeological traces of the Roman period are scattered throughout the territory of Colonnella and the best preserved among them are ancient Roman Cisterns, "Cincolà" and "Ricci.

However, the incursions and insecurity of those times pushed the populations of the two villages increasingly inland and, came together at the highest point of the surrounding hills, founding Colonnrlla.

[7] This name, which appears to derive from the Latin columella (small column) and not from the later feudal lord Guillame Colonnella mentioned in the Catalogus Baronum, in 1047.

[8] In the late Eleventh Century, the Normans which had conquered southern Italy began penetrating north into Aprutium.

By 1078 they had reached the Tronto River, where under the threat of excommunication they stopped and thus were able to bring Colonnella into the Norman sphere and after 1131 became part of the Kingdom of Sicily, marking a border (marca) that would remain basically unchanged until the 1861 unification of Italy.

In the Catalogus baronum of 1167-1168 it is mentioned as a fief held, belonging to two Norman barons who take their name from it, William Colonnellus and his brother James.

[9] From the Catalogus baronum, the first census of the Kingdom of Naples by the Normans, it appears that the fief of Colonnella was required to provide the King to equip and maintain an armigere (with its retinue) every 24 households, it is deduced that at the time the village had about 220 inhabitants.

In 1602, Colonnella was purchased by Andrea Matteo Acquaviva, Duke of Atri and Prince of Caserta and in 1640 it was sold to Diana di Capua.

In 1806 King Ferdinand IV of Naples fled to Sicily and the French conquered Teramo and the fortress of Civitella del Tronto.

Napoleon installed his brother Joseph Bonaparte and then his brother-in-law Joachim Murat on the throne of Naples; the latter immediately issued a series of reforms aimed at modernizing the state.

After the Congress of Vienna (1816) Colonnella was returned to the cadet Bourbon kingdom and administratively included in the Abruzzo Ulteriore Primo, corresponding to the present Province of Teramo to the Pescara river.

The historic center is dominated by the Church and the Clock Tower, see below, and is full of numerous small squares and narrow streets, called "rue" in dialect.