Itri

Itri has 10,460 inhabitants in a valley of the Aurunci mountains, a few kilometres from the sea, where the Via Appia crosses the range through a narrow gorge. The name probably comes from the Latin iter, the road: Itri was born of a passage. The first document naming the town is from 914 and mentions «Stefano, itrano»; soon after, on the hill overlooking the Appia, the castrum took shape, and the town split into the upper town around the castle and the lower town along the road, separated by the Pontone stream.

On the coat of arms there is a snake, and from it was born the legend — groundless, as those who tell it warn — that Itri was founded by refugees from the mythical Amyclae, driven out by an invasion of serpents, and that the name comes from the Hydra of Lerna. In the fifteenth century a group of Jews lived by the castle, in the area of today's vicolo Giudea, and the Universitas set up wool dyeworks in the lower town. Here in 1771 was born Michele Pezza, the fra Diavolo who went from outlaw to Bourbon colonel and was hanged in Naples in 1806.