The borgo of Acquasanta Terme is located along the ancient track of the Salaria Superiore way, where the Garrafo torrent flows into the river Tronto. Its territory lies mostly between the Gran Sasso National Park and Monti della Laga. This famous health spa is nested amid a superb landscape of deep valleys and quiet walks along winding paths, dotted with tangible reminders of the past.
The ancient Vicus ad Aquas owes its name to the presence of underground thermal sulphureous waters. The therapeutic nature of the waters was already well known at the time of the Romans who installed a “Mansio”, a rest and refreshment station, called “Vicus ad Aquas”, for their legionaries. The place is mentioned in the Roman military itineraries in “Carta Peutinçeriana”.
After the fall of the Roman Empire in the west, the city endured a succession of Longobard settlement as well as the passage of the Franks; it was during the passage that, according to the historian Marcucci, around the year 800 Carlo Magno, while travelling from Ascoli to Rome, where he had received the Crown of the Holy Roman Empire, stopped to bathe in the sulphureous waters of Acquasanta.
About the year 1000, the city came under the influence of the Benedictine monks from the Farfa Abbey, and subsequently the domination of the Bishop/Counts of Ascoli.
Around the XIV century, the whole territory of Acquasanta was subjected to the power of Ascoli. The territory was divided into four syndicates, organised on the classic parish scheme: Aquis with its seat in Paggese; Montecalvo with its seat in St. Martino; Facciano (now Falciano); Montacuto with its seat in Pomaro and later Quintodecimo.
On 10th August 1454, the night of St. Lorenzo, the Lord of di Luco Castle, Pier de Vanni Ciucci, at the head of a solid group of fierce mountaineers, descended on Ascoli and cut to pieces Rinaldo da Folignano, half-brother to Francesco Sforza. Vanni Ciucci the occupied the Tyrant's palace and proclaimed the sovereignty of the Pope.
In the XV century, the four Acquasanta syndicates were admitted to the Marca Anconetana of the Pontifical State; at the head of each was placed a “Podestà”, who administrated the day-to-day life of the township, assisted by a General Parliament, publicised loud and clear by a town crier.
From the XVI century on, these lands were torn by raids, brigandry and massacres caused by the turbulent Ascolane, Parisani and Guiderocchi families. This led to the destruction of the town and stirred up banditry as a ribellion against Ascolano power of the Church. Thanks to the assignment of a strong contingent of Corsi soldiers towards the end of the century, the XVII century passed with no great traumas.
The racing of the plague and the subsequent Napoleonic occupation of the XVIII century, however, triggered once more the banditry, which was to accompany the history of these lands until after the annexation to the Reign of Italy in 1865. it wasn't until 1957 that the borgo took the name of Acquasanta.
Today the city is a renowned health Spa where inhalations, insufflations, hydromassage and many other therapies are practised; there is also a so-called sweat cave in which the waters generate high-temperature steam, constituting a natural sauna.

Monuments