Both coming from Viterbo or Rome, Soriano appears in the same way: the centre lies on the top of a roundish hill,it is characterized by two different types of urbanistic settlement: the little medieval village around the castle (built during the pontificate of Pope Niccolò III Orsini in the XIIIth century), and the wide Renaissance quarters which contain it. The former is made up of little houses and narrow lanes that face wide stretches of chestnut trees; the latter instead offers the wonderful Albani Chigi Palace (XVIth century), which is considered one of the greatest masterpieces of Ottaviano Schiratti, with the very famous Fontana Papacqua. Of Etruscan or Phoenician origin, even if recent recoveries show human presence also in prehistorical ages, some scholars in the past have considered it was "Surrina Vetus", destroyed by the Romans. Judging by the archaeological discoveries, there were many inhabited units, of modest dimension, that settled in the territory of Soriano during the Etruscan period. In the Roman one there were more than 30 little villages. How could such an uneven and wooded territory be so much populated? The first supposition regard the geografic collocation, so near to the centres of Ferentium and Meonia, and not far from Bisentium, Falerii, Horta, Surrena and Vulsini. Another supposition was made by Father Germano Passionista in the XVIIIth century: it regards the passage of the Ferentian Route (Strada Ferentana) which connected Ferentium with Falerii.
Further conjectures link the presence of settlements with plenty of of natural defences, the chance to sight eventual attackers or, even, with the presence of a temple consecrated to Jupiter Cimino. Inhabited settlements got more numerous during the Middle Ages: little castles rounded mostly by a few houses or rural villages; from the VIIIth till the XIIIth century there were important monastic settlements, around whici entire villages of artisans and peasants developped. The first
