It is part of the Cimini hill group and lies amidst chestnut woods and vast cultivations of hazel groves. The period of greatest urban and economic development is tied to Francesco Ruspoli, in the first thirty years of the eighteenth century.

The most representative monument is the baronial castle (or Palazzo Ruspoli), which was built on a pre-existing Benedictine structure in around 1280, at the time of Pope Nicholas III and the Di Vico prefects. The most radical renovation was carried out by the first count of Vignanello, Sforza-Marescotti, in the mid-sixteenth century, according to designs drawn by Sangallo. It was fortified with swallow­tailed merlons and the austerity we can still admire today was provided by the four crenellated corner towers with counter-forts that emerge from the deep moat. On the long sides of the mighty walls rest two ancient drawbridges, one of which leads to the town's central square, whilst the other overlooks the garden commissioned in the seventeenth century by Ottavia Orsini, the daughter of Vicino, creator of the Sacred Wood of Bomarzo. The entrance hall, leading off to various apartments, stands on the site previously occupied by the courtyard. The roofing project (1569) is attributed to Vignola. A family tree, painted on the inside, clarifies the fact that the head of the Marescotti family, Marius Escotus, descended from one of Charlemagne's commanders, in his turn a descendant of the Scottish royal house of Douglas and Earl of Galloway. The numerous rooms on the upper floor, with a beautiful view of the garden, house estimable frescoes and portraits of various eras with subjects and figures who made the history of the palazzo.

The garden, which is considered an extraordinary example of a finished model of an "Italian garden", has the rare merit of having been handed down to us virtually intact. Its creation (early seventeenth century) bears the signature of Ottavia Orsini, wife of Marcantonio Marescotti, symbolised by her initials and those of her children (Sforza and Galeazzo) in the design of the box borders of the squares in the parterre.

The rectangular space, crossed by four avenues and subdivided into twelve aligned parterres, provides a harmonious geometry of mixed hedges, consisting of laurel, cherry laurel, laurustinus and box. In the centre is a fishpond surrounded by a balustrade, while at the level of the ramparts is Ottavia's "secret garden", beneath which are partly unexplored tunnels and caves. In 1704, the family took the name Ruspoli (following the marriage of Sforza-Marescotti to Vittoria Ruspoli). Francesco Ruspoli was responsible, among other things, for the construction of the collegiate church of Santa Maria, consecrated on the 8th November 1725 by Benedict XIII. In the late Baroque interior, we can admire a precious organ, with an eighteenth-century case, and an elaborate wooden Gloria enclosing the image of the Madonna and Child, attributed to Annibale Carracci.

The church of San Sebastian contains a canvas attributed to Pomarancio (Coronation of the Virgin, St. Francis and St. Sebastian). An eighteenth-century canvas of the Immaculate Conception is venerated in the church of San Giovanni.

Vignanello was the birthplace of St. Clarice Marescotti (1589-1640), daughter of Marcantonio and Ottavia Orsini, canonized as St. Giacinta in 1807.