Roccasecca has 7,536 inhabitants at the mouth of the gorges that lead into the Valle di Comino, below Monte Asprano. The name says it all: a rocca on top of a mountain with no water. The castle was put up there in 994 by abbot Manso to defend Montecassino, which lies a few kilometres away, and the guard of it was entrusted to a branch of the counts of Aquino.
In that castle, between 1224 and 1225, Thomas Aquinas was born: it is the most accredited place, even though some medieval sources give him a Calabrian birth, at Belcastro. After 1550 part of the inhabitants came down to the valley and today's hamlets were born; in 1583 the village was sold together with the fief of Aquino to Giacomo Boncompagni, duke of Sora and son of pope Gregory XIII, and under him it finally had a little peace, after centuries spent changing master with every battle in the valley of the Liri.
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📅 Every year, on the third Sunday of August
Roccasecca celebrates Saint Peter Martyr on the third Sunday of August. The town was the birthplace, between 1224 and 1225, of Thomas Aquinas, the «Doctor Angelicus», among the most influential philosophers and theologians in Western history, canonised in 1323 and declared patron of universities in 1880.
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 Roccasecca, but an easy day trip away.
