Perched on the top of Mount Ginestro (763 meters above sea level), 40 km from Rome, the village has a long history, which begins in the late Bronze Age (15th-14th century BC), as evidenced by the ceramics recently found in the upper part of the mountain, referable to the first inhabited nucleus. From it in the following centuries originated the city of Praeneste, the current Palestrina, famous in Roman times for the sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia. The top of the mountain became the seat of the acropolis and the cult of Jupiter Arkanus. The rites related to the augurium and auspicium practices were also held there. The ring of polygonal walls of the sixth century BC that surrounds the acropolis, is part of the entire circuit of fortifications, about 4.5 km long, which also encloses the underlying city of Palestrina.
In the 6th century AD the site became the seat of a Benedictine monastery, where Pope Gregory the Great stayed. In the twelfth century the territory entered the fiefs of the Colonna family who built a castrum here with a strategic-military function, destroyed in the clash with the papacy, a first time in 1298 under Boniface VIII and a second time with Eugenio IV in 1436-37. The reconstruction of the fortress in 1482 led to the development of the village and the use of the ancient castrum for civil and administrative activities. In the seventeenth century, with the sale of the fief to the Barberinis, the town underwent substantial urban transformations. Where the Benedictine monastery once stood, the Barberinis rebuilt the church of San Pietro Apostolo, placing its entrance on the new square in front. On what is now the main square of the village, a century later the Mocci family built the family palace.
In the 1950s Castel San Pietro Romano became famous thanks to the cinema. Its mayor Adolfo Porry Pastorel, father of Italian photojournalism, convinced Luigi Comencini to set Pane, amore e fantasia (1953) there. Still starring Vittorio De Sica, scenes of Bread, love and jealousy were shot in 1954, while in 1958 it was Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia who continued the fresco of the Italian province after the war with Tuppe tuppe, Marescià!
Just outside the center, the Cannuccete Valley is a protected natural area that extends for about twenty hectares. The park is home to the typical flora and fauna of the Lazio hilly and submontane landscape. Inside you can see the remains of the pre-Roman aqueduct coeval with the polygonal walls (6th century BC), built by Greek labor, as evidenced by some letters of the Greek alphabet on the walls of the conduit.