Its ancient remains are a major draw for tourism: a Roman amphitheatre excavated in the tuff rock, an Etruscan necropolis with dozens of rock-cut tombs, a Mithraeum incorporated in the crypt of its church of the Madonna del Parto, a Romanesque Duomo.

In 1111 it was the seat of the treaty between Paschal II and Emperor Henry V; in 1146 and 1244 Eugene III and Innocent IV took refuge here, respectively.

In 1433 the condottiero Niccolò Fortebraccio set fire to Sutri, and from that point onward the city declined in favour of Ronciglione.

Pope Gregory VI abdicated at Sutri on December 20, 1046, following the Synod of Sutri, a non-ecumenical council convened at the request of Emperor Henry III to resolve three rival claims to the papacy, ultimately in favor of an imperial German protégé, Pope Clement II.

It has had the following incumbents, of the fitting episcopal (lowest) rank with two archiepiscopal exceptions: The most striking edifice is the rock-hewn amphitheatre of the Roman period, one of the most suggestive monuments of the ancient Latium (Lazio).

There are some remains of the ancient city walls of rectangular blocks of tuff on the southern side of the town, and some rock-cut sewers in the cliffs below them.

In the cliffs opposite the town on the south is the rock-cut church of the Madonna del Parto, developed out of one of the numerous Etruscan tombs of the area (according to some scholars, it was a mithraeum, pagan soldier cult site).