Pope Eugenio III native house

The popular tradition recognises Pietro Bernardo dei Paganelli native house in this very small building with a rectangular plan (Rita Carriaggio picture). It was made up with irregular stones and with a slanting roof.

Pietro Bernardo dei Paganelli became the 167th Pope of the Catholic Church in 1145 with the name of Eugene III.

Pietro Bernardo born in Montemagno in around 1094; was  ordainned priest and then Vicedomino in the bishoprie of Pisa. He met the Cistercian abbot Bernardo da Chiaravalle,  founder of the Clairvaux Abbey in France, and became his friend and disciple in the Cistercian order. He was ordered Abbot at the Monastery of Saints Anastasius and Vincent, near the Tre Fontane, in the Roman countryside. In 1145, in the midst of the communal revolution in Rome, after the death of Pope Lucius II, Pietro Bernardo was nominated Pope.

The Roman senators immediately asked him to recognize the authority of the Commune and to renounce his temporal powers. He refused and the rioters blocked access to the Basilica of Saint Peter to prevent his investiture ceremony. Pietro Bernardo then left Rome and went to the Monastery of Farfa, about 40 km away, where, on 18 February, he was solemnly elected Pope with the name of Eugenio III.
The Pope never established good relations with the Romans and, in his eight years of pontificate, he stayed in Rome for only a year and a half overall. In the early years his favorite residence was Viterbo, then he also stayed in Tuscolo, Ferentino and Segni.

During his pontificate, Eugenio III launched the Second Crusade, promoted great reforms in the Church, especially in the canonical sphere, and tried to reaffirm the supremacy of the papacy over the empire.
He died in Tivoli on 8 July 1153 and was buried in Rome in the Basilica of Saint Jonh in Laterano.
In 1872 he was beatified by Pope Pio IX.