
All images © by Roberto Piperno, owner of the domain. Write to romapip@quipo.it.
Notes:
Page revised in December 2024.
All images © by Roberto Piperno, owner of the domain. Write to romapip@quipo.it.
Notes:
Page revised in December 2024.
The Pontine Marshes in a late XVIth century fresco at Galleria delle Mappe Geografiche in the corridors of Palazzo del Belvedere in Rome; it shows the towns covered in this section and Mount Circeo and Terracina
Fondi, February 23, 1787. We were on the road yery early, by three in the morning. As the day broke we found ourselves on the Pontine Marshes. (..) Conceive to yourself a wide valley, which, as it stretches from north to south, has but a yery slight fall, but which towards the east and the mountains is extremely low, but rises again considerably towards the sea on the west. Running in a straight line through the whole length of it, the ancient Via Appia has been restored.
J. W. Goethe - Italian Journey - translation by Charles Nisbet
The flat country between the Volsci (or Lepini) Mountains and the sea is an inclined surface where the coastal dunes are at a higher level than the
ground at the foot of the mountains, thus causing the stagnation of several small rivers. In 312 BC the Romans dug a canal to protect
Via Appia from being periodically flooded, but most of the plain remained an
unhealthy marsh. Things got worse after the fall of the Roman Empire and in the VIIIth century Via Appia was no longer practicable; it was replaced by a
winding road which followed the ridge of the hills overlooking the plain and favoured the development of Sermoneta and other medieval towns.
View of Sermoneta by Edward Lear (1840s)
In the Maritima (the province of the Pontine Marhes) we find ourselves in the territory of another great noble family, for there the Gaetani - Dukes of Sermoneta - are lords of the soil.
Ferdinand Gregorovius - From the Volscian Mountains - 1860 - English translation by Dorothea Roberts.
A short distance beyond Cisterna, a road on the left turns off 2 miles to the mysterious ruined city of Ninfa and proceeds to Sermoneta 6 miles further, occupying the summit of a hill projecting from the mountains, and separated from them on one side by a beautifully wooded ravine.
Augustus J. C. Hare - Days near Rome - 1873
Sermoneta (840 ft.), a little town (2127 inhab.), with quaint mediaeval streets, is commanded by an old castle of the Dukes Caetani, the keep of which dates from the 13th cent. In the 16th cent, it was for a time the property of Lucretia Borgia, and it was fortified by her brother Caesar, Duke of Valentinois. The church of San Giuseppe contains pictures by Girolamo da Sermoneta, and the Cathedral a Virgin with angels by Benozzo Gozzoli.
Baedeker's Handbook - Central Italy and Rome - 1909
(above-left) Sermoneta; (above-right) Monticchio, a watch tower in the plain below Sermoneta; (below) Latina, a modern town on the site of the former marshes, seen from Sermoneta
The marsh however was no protection against the raids of the Saracens, who took advantage of the coast being unpopulated. Between 700 and the
year 1000 they could actually temporarily occupy the shores between Mt. Circeo and
Torre Astura and from there they moved inland. This explains the fortified aspect of Sermoneta and the existence of watch towers built
on high rocks.
The full reclamation of the Pontine Marshes was carried out in 1929-1935 and a series of new towns were founded in the plain below Sermoneta, of which Latina is the most important one.
The earliest mention of Sermoneta is in 1222, in a bull of Honorius III. In 1297 it was bought from the Annibaldeschi by Pietro Gaetani, Count of Caserta, nephew of Bonifatius VIII. Hare
The Annibaldi were a powerful family in XIIIth century Rome and they fortified the highest part of Sermoneta and erected a square tower around which other fortifications were built by the Caetani (Gaetani in the Kingdom of Naples). They controlled the access to Rome by a series of castles and towers along Via Appia which included a castle at Tomba di Cecilia Metella and a tower in the very heart of Rome at Isola Tiberina. Very near Sermoneta the Caetani had a castle at Ninfa and a fortress/palace at Cisterna.
(above) Castello Caetani seen from the lower part of Sermoneta with the square tower of the Annibaldi; (below) windows in its western side
In 1500 Alexander VI. besieged and took the town, putting to death Monsignor Giacomo Gaetani, and Bernardino Gaetani, who was only aged seven. Till this time there were no titles in Italy, the great personages were only "Seigneurs" of their own lands, but with the Spanish Borgias this was changed, and Alexander VI. made his own son Duke of Sermoneta. In his time the prisons here were erected, and were well filled. Hare
The Borgias have long been stock figures in the dark chronicle of European villainy, their name synonymous with unspeakable evil and sin, thus they were often referred to by travel writers.
When Julius II. came to the throne, he restored Sermoneta with all their other confiscated possessions to the Gaetani, and also bestowed upon them the title which his predecessor had attached to the property. The Gaetani retained their complete feudal rights, even the power of life and death, until the present century. The castle is exceedingly imposing externally, and encloses a vast courtyard. Ricchi, writing in the beginning of the last century, dilates upon the splendours of its furniture, but the Duke of Sermoneta who lived in the time of the great French Revolution was so dreadfully afraid of an attack, that he voluntarily opened his gates for pillage, and invited all the townspeople to come in and help themselves; which they did, leaving nothing whatever behind them. Only a small part of the building is now habitable. There are one or two fine old chimney-pieces, but the parts of the castle in best preservation are the prisons, which were built by the Borgias, and which occupy an entire wing, one below another, beginning with well-lighted rooms, and ending in dismal dungeons. There is a fine view from the top of the tower. Hare
Sermoneta, because of its position along one of the two roads which for centuries linked Rome with Naples (the other one being through Palestrina and Anagni), provided services to merchants and travellers. The loggia had stables and warehouses and the merchants could display their luxury goods under its wide arches. See a fine Renaissance facility having the same purpose at Castiglion Fiorentino.
At the beginning of the XVIth century the Jewish population of Sermoneta expanded because of the arrival of many Jews from the Kingdom of Naples. In 1492 King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabel of Castile decreed the expulsion of all Jews from their possessions which included Sicily. Many of them moved to the Kingdom of Naples, which, although ruled by a dynasty of Aragon origin, welcomed their arrival. In 1503 however it became a direct possession of the Crown of Spain and the Jews were on the move again: several families settled in the towns of southern Latium increasing the local communities. It was not the end of their journey: in 1555 Pope Paul IV ordered the Jews of the Papal State to live either in Rome or Ancona in a segregated area (the Ghetto). There the Jews, who had not a tradition of using surnames, but rather patronymics, had to live in a relatively large community and for practical reasons adopted as a surname the town they came from, one of which was Sermoneta.
Cathedral (S. Maria Assunta): (left) bell tower (also in the image used as background for this page); (right) fresco above the entrance
Sermoneta was a bishopric see in the VIth century because a bishop of Sulmo (Sermoneta) is recorded among those who attended a Roman synod called by Pope Symmachus in 499, but afterwards it became part of the diocese of Terracina and Sezze. Its main church however is usually referred to as the Cathedral. It was built on the site of an ancient Roman temple.
Cathedral: (left) medieval lion and holy water font; (right) XVIth century chapel with a painting attributed to Benozzo Gozzoli
The church is a sort of summary of the history of the town: it shows elements of all periods.
Renaissance bastion and the Volscian aka Lepini mountains
The walls of Sermoneta were strengthened in the XVIth century when the risk of attacks from the sea increased again: the Ottomans had expanded their empire to the coasts of Tunisia and Algeria and from there they promoted corsair raids on the coasts of Italy. The walls were also necessary due to the fact that Italy was a battlefield for French and Spanish armies and their local supporters. The prevailing aspect of these fortifications is due to Antonio da Sangallo the Elder, who designed for Pope Alexander VI the fortresses of nearby Nettuno and of Civita Castellana.
The little town was the birthplace of the painter Girolamo Siciolante. Hare
There is now living in Rome, and certainly a very able artist in his vocation, the painter Girolamo Sicciolante of Sermoneta, of whom, although we have already named him in the Life of Perino del Vaga, whose disciple he was; and whom he assisted greatly in his works at Castel Sant'Angelo and elsewhere, it will yet be well to say here also what his merits so amply deserve. (..) The Chapel of the Fugger family in the Church of Santa Maria dell'Anima, which is that of the German nation, was painted in fresco by this artist: who depicted events from the Life of Our Lady therein. (..) I do not name the portraits and other smaller works of Girolamo, because they are very numerous, and what I have here said will suffice to make him known as an able and excellent painter.
Giorgio Vasari - Lives of the most eminent painters, sculptors, and architects - 1568
(left) Paintings of a ruined church; (right) S. Giuseppe along the main street
With the reclamation of the marshes and the opening of a railway which runs at the foot of the hill next to the restored Via Appia, Sermoneta lost its importance and its population decreased, attracted by the new towns built on the plain: several old houses were abandoned. Today it gives the impression of a partial recovery: its old churches and the memories of the past foster the feeling of belonging to a community which the new towns seem unable to create.