The communal territory sits on large deposits of tuff, which is intensively mined in the area.

As an Italian comune, it includes some of the archaeological sites associated with the powerful former Etruscan city of Veii, which rivaled Rome for a time, north of the village of Isola Farnese, south of Formello.

In this area, about 780 AD, with peaceful conditions reestablished, Pope Adrian I assembled a great estate of which this territory formed part, his Domusculta Capracorum, in contrast with the power of the Abbey of Farfa, but it was destroyed by Saracen attacks in the ninth century.

The domus' territories included a fundus Formellum, where a settlement developed that was first mentioned in 1027.

[3] In the 11th century it was a possession of the Roman Basilica of San Paolo fuori le Mura, and was probably fortified in the same period.