The Reserve, established by Latium Regional Law No. 29 of October 6, 1997, covers about 1340 hectares entirely within the municipality of Tivoli and takes its name from a peak close to the town of Tivoli and recognizable by the cross placed at its summit.
The management of the protected area is entrusted to the Metropolitan City of Rome Capital, Department III, Service “Protected Areas – Protection of Biodiversity.”
To the south, a small forest of cork trees(Quercus suber) and storax vegetates between Colle Vescovo and the ridges proximal to “Reali” and “la Prece.”
The forest, where species normally found in geographically distant environments of the western and eastern Mediterranean with quite different ecological characteristics coexist, is of great scientific interest, and the desire to protect it was the main reason for establishing the protected area.
Where the cork oak forest has been destroyed by repeated violent fires, tree heather and cistus are propagating.
The fauna is represented by species typical of agro-ecosystems and Apennine areas.
Among birds, diurnal birds of prey such as kestrels(Falco tinnunculus) and buzzards(Buteo buteo), nocturnal birds of prey such as tawny owls(Strix aluco), little owls(Athene noctua) and, in summer,scops owls(Otus scops) can be easily observed. Frequent listening to the song of the blackcap(Sylvia atricapilla), titmouse(Parus major), titmouse(Parus caeruleus), and blackbird(Turdus merula).
In wooded areas it is possible to hear the sounds of the Green Woodpecker(Picus viridis), Great Spotted Woodpecker(Dendrocops major), Wryneck(Jynx torquilla), and Nuthatch(Sitta europea).
Among mammals, specimens or tracks of wild boar, fox, hare, badger, porcupine, and sometimes roe deer and wolf can be easily observed.
The flora and vegetation of the Reserve are extraordinarily diverse, not only because of the high number of species present, but also because the species are different in geographical origin and ecological type and are grouped together to form forests, shrublands and grasslands with the most varied compositions and structures.The Reserve was established primarily to protect its extraordinary botanical heritage.
Geographically, the Tivoli Mountains lie at a junction of exchange where so-called “western” species (adapted to an oceanic climate, where summer aridity and winter cold are mitigated by Tyrrhenian influence) meet with thermophilic species, capable of withstanding relative aridity, and where species normally widespread on volcanic substrates grow luxuriantly alongside species ecologically linked to the limestone substrate.
One of the special features of the Reserve is the exceptional abundance of so-called “eastern” or “Balkan-eastern” species, which reach our regions from a core centered, depending on the species, in the Carpathians, the Danube area, the Balkans, the Aegean or the Black Sea coasts.
Among these is of great naturalistic interest the storax (Styrax officinalis L., protected by Regional Law 61/74 for the protection of flora), a sapling with white, fragrant flowers, locally also called “mellàina,” widespread in the eastern Mediterranean (Balkans, Aegean), in a well-demarcated area separated by a second small distribution area between the Lucretili Mountains, the Cornicolani and the Tivoli Mountains.
Intense and multimillennial human impact, which with the succession of grazing and cultivation, and with fires, has further increased the complexity of the Tiburtine environment and its floristic and vegetational diversity.
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