Valvisciolo is a historical location in

Latium Latium ( , ; ) is the region of central western Italy in which the city of Rome was founded and grew to be the capital city of the Roman Empire. Definition Latium was originally a small triangle of fertile, volcanic soil (Old Latium) on whi ...

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 ...

, close to

Sermoneta Sermoneta is a hill town and ''comune'' in the province of Latina (Lazio), central Italy. It is a walled hill town, with a 13th-century Romanesque cathedral called Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta and a massive castle, built by the Caetani f ...

and

Latina Latina or Latinas most often refers to: * Latinas, a demographic group in the United States * Latino (demonym), a term used in the United States for people with cultural ties to Latin America. *Latin Americans Latina and Latinas may also refer ...

. Known mainly for the

Valvisciolo Abbey Valvisciolo Abbey is a Cistercian monastery in the province of Latina, central Italy, near the towns of Sermoneta and Ninfa. It is an example of rigorous Romanesque-Cistercian architecture, considered a masterpiece of that style in central Ital ...

, this locality also includes important archaeological remains of a prehistoric, hillside settlement at the Valvisciolo/Caracupa site. The site is a terraced settlement utilizing megalithic architecture, perhaps in technical terms an early predecessor of the more developed

polygonal masonry Polygonal masonry is a technique of stone wall construction. True polygonal masonry is a technique wherein the visible surfaces of the stones are dressed with straight sides or joints, giving the block the appearance of a polygon. This techniqu ...

of the later first millennium BC. Occupation on the site ends in the sixth century BC, with local populations perhaps shifting to the Latin city of

Norba Norba, an ancient town of Latium (''Adjectum''), Italy. It is situated 1 mile northwest of the modern town of Norma, on the western edge of the Volscian Mountains or Monti Lepini. The town is perched above a precipitous cliff with a splendid v ...

which was incorporated as a Latin ''colonia'' by 492 BCE, according to the textual tradition, mainly based on the historian

Livy Titus Livius (; 59 BC – AD 17), known in English as Livy ( ), was a Ancient Rome, Roman historian. He wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people, titled , covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditiona ...

References

Becker, J. A. 2007
The building blocks of empire: civic architecture, central Italy, and the Roman Middle Republic. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
de Haas, T. C. A. 2011
''Fields, farms and colonists : intensive field survey and early Roman colonization in the Pontine region, central Italy''. Groningen.

External links

*{{cite web , url=http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/423114 , title=Places: 423114 (Valvisciolo) , author=Quilici, L., S. Quilici Gigli, R. Talbert, T. Elliott, S. Gillies, J. Becker , accessdate=March 9, 2012, publisher=Pleiades Archaeological sites in Italy Geography of Lazio