Alatri

It was the ancient Hernici who set the course of Alatri: before Rome subdued Latium, this Italic people raised on the crown of the hill the acropolis that still defines the town's profile. They call it the Civita, and its walls are made of irregular blocks as much as three metres long, quarried from the hill itself and fitted together so exactly that they never needed mortar: two kilometres of perimeter and only two gates, the Porta Maggiore and the one known as the gate of the Phalli. Lower down a second ring, concentric and built by the same technique, encloses twenty-five hectares with five gates, all originally topped by monolithic lintels: only one, the gate of San Benedetto, has come down to us intact. In 2008, on the highest rock of the acropolis, a carving came to light showing a triple enclosure, precisely aligned on the stars.

On top of the Hernici's stones now stands the co-cathedral of San Paolo, and inside it two things that explain this town's devotion. The relics of its patron, pope Sixtus I, sealed in an ancient lead urn with his name cut into the lid; and the relic of the incarnate host, which tradition says turned to flesh in the thirteenth century, an affair documented by a mandate sent by pope Gregory IX to the bishop of Alatri in 1228 and retold in the frescoes of the side chapels. Not far off, the collegiate church of Santa Maria Maggiore dates from the fifth century and was raised on the ruins of a pagan temple: in Alatri every layer sits on the one before, and you can see it.