The current position of Canale Monterano dates back to the end of the 17th century, when the golden age of the ancient village of Monterano was drawing to a close. The inhabitants, in fact, began to leave the Old Monterano due to the unhealthy air, but the final blow came with the assault of the French troops that occupied the Papal States. The locals thus moved permanently to the present Canale and to Montevirginio, the places chosen by Tuscan and Umbrian settlers called by landowners to clear the forest. The current Corso della Repubblica, along which the core of the settlement rises, originated precisely from a North-South canal created for the deforestation. After the “Capture of Rome”, Canale was definitively called Canale Monterano.

Piazza del Campo, overlooked by the Town Hall, is dominated by the octagonal fountain by Bernini, initially built in the Old Monterano, in front of the Church of Saint Bonaventure. Today, in the original place there is a faithful cast: the same happened for Bernini’s Lion, now housed in the Town Hall, originally positioned at the foot of Palazzo Altieri in Monterano.