Named for the Farfa River, a tributary of the Tiber flowing nearby, Farfa is the site of one of the most significant monuments of the late Middle Ages in central Italy, the Abbey of Farfa.

The first edifice of the Benedictine Abbey of Farfa appears to have been constructed in the sixth century A.D. on the site of a pre-existing Roman villa of the second century A.D. A 9th century text indicates the founder as San Lorenzo Siro, who fled persecution in Syria with a