Aquino has 5,309 inhabitants in the Liri valley, and the name simply means water: it comes from the Latin Aquinum, and the ground still confirms it with its many small springs; until the sixteenth century there were even three lakes beside the town, later drained. Roman Aquinum was a serious place: in 211 before Christ it took the title of urbs, which at that time belonged to Rome alone, and under the empire it was a municipium with the right to strike its own coin. When in 125 before Christ the neighbouring city of Fregellae was destroyed, Aquino became the most important centre between Rome and Capua. In one of the Roman villas of the area the poet Juvenal was probably born.
Then there are two questions of names. The church of Santa Maria della Libera, Romanesque, of the ninth century, and a national monument, stands on the remains of a temple dedicated to Hercules Liberator, and in the Madonna's title it has kept the god's epithet. And Thomas Aquinas, who takes his name from this place, was not born in it: he was born a few kilometres further north, in the castle of Roccasecca, into a collateral branch of the counts of Aquino. The name he carries is the county's, not the town's, which has dedicated its co-cathedral to him all the same.
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📅 Every year, on 7 March
Aquino celebrates its main patron, Saint Thomas Aquinas, on 7 March. The co-patron, Saint Constantius, is celebrated on 1 September, with the Palio della Contea.
📅 Every year, on 1 September, with the Palio della Contea di Aquino
Aquino celebrates its co-patron Saint Constantius on 1 September, the month of the Palio della Contea di Aquino. The main patron, Saint Thomas Aquinas, is celebrated on 7 March.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside Aquino, but an easy day trip away.
