Boville Ernica is a town and ''

comune The (; plural: ) is a local administrative division of Italy, roughly equivalent to a township or municipality. It is the third-level administrative division of Italy, after regions ('' regioni'') and provinces (''province''). The can also ...

'' in the

province of Frosinone The Province of Frosinone ( it, Provincia di Frosinone) is a province in the Lazio region of Italy, with 91 ''comuni'' (singular: ''comune''; see Comuni of the Province of Frosinone). Its capital is the city of Frosinone. It has an area of ...

Lazio it, Laziale , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

. It is located over the summit of a steep hill commanding the

Liri The Liri (Latin Liris or Lyris, previously, Clanis; Greek: ) is one of the principal rivers of central Italy, flowing into the Tyrrhenian Sea a little below Minturno under the name Garigliano. Source and route The Liri's source is in the Mon ...

Cosa Cosa was a Latin colony founded in southwestern Tuscany in 273 BC, on land confiscated from the Etruscans, to solidify the control of the Romans and offer the Republic a protected port. The Etruscan site (called ''Cusi'' or ''Cosia'') may have b ...

and

Sacco Sacco may refer to: * Sacco (clothing) (also Sakko), a type of jacket * Sacco (river), a river of central Italy * Sacco, Campania, a comune (municipality) in southern Italy * Sacco chair, by Piero Gatti, Cesare Paolini, Franco Teodoro * Ospedal ...

valleys.

History

The town's history stretches back to pre-

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

times, which is testified by its numerous archaeological findings and prehistoric

Pelasgic wall The Pelasgic wall or Pelasgian fortress or ''Enneapylon'' (Greek: Εννεαπύλον; nine-gated) was a monument supposed to have been built by the Pelasgians, after levelling the summit of the rock on the Acropolis of Athens. Thucydides and Arist ...

s. Its primordial name, "Bauco", recalls the ancient agricultural worship of the god Bove, symbol of fertility. In the archaeological area of Monte Fico, where once stood a temple dedicated to this divinity, there have come to light votive statuettes featuring oxen. Boville Ernica was once situated on the plains below its present site, but after the

Saracen upright 1.5, Late 15th-century German woodcut depicting Saracens Saracen ( ) was a term used in the early centuries, both in Greek and Latin writings, to refer to the people who lived in and near what was designated by the Romans as Arabia Pe ...

and Hungarian invasions (9th–10th centuries), its population moved to the higher levels of Monte Fico, where the ancient center was transformed into one of the most fortified towns in the region.

Main sights

In addition to the

Pelasgi The name Pelasgians ( grc, Πελασγοί, ''Pelasgoí'', singular: Πελασγός, ''Pelasgós'') was used by classical Greek writers to refer either to the predecessors of the Greeks, or to all the inhabitants of Greece before the emergenc ...

c walls, sights include the castle and its Medieval walls having as many as 18 turrets and towers (alternating as round and square shapes), all standing completely intact. Boville is also home to many Renaissance palaces and churches. Among them is the church of ''San Pietro Ispano'', erected in the 12th century over the grotto in which for many years the Patron Saint lived. The church still conserves an early-Christian sarcophagus, two reliquaries, belonging to S. Pietro Ispano and S. Lucy, a chapel once belonging to the noble family of the Simoncelli, a Sansovino basrelief and a mosaic attributed to

Giotto Giotto di Bondone (; – January 8, 1337), known mononymously as Giotto ( , ) and Latinised as Giottus, was an Italian painter and architect from Florence during the Late Middle Ages. He worked during the Gothic/Proto-Renaissance period. Giot ...

Personalities

Vincenzo Paglia Vincenzo Paglia (born 20 April 1945) is an Italian prelate of the Catholic Church. He is the president of the Pontifical Academy for Life and grand chancellor of the John Paul II Pontifical Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences. ...

(born 1945), Roman Catholic bishop

References

External links

Boville Ernica's cemetery

Cities and towns in Lazio {{Lazio-geo-stub