Monte San Biagio

Monte San Biagio has 6,144 inhabitants on a ridge of the Ausoni mountains that runs down towards the plain and the lake of Fondi. For centuries this was the first town of the Kingdom of Naples met by anyone arriving from Rome along the Appian Way: the border with the Papal State ran along the crests just above, and the customs post stood at Portella, where the towers and the gate under which the consular road passed can still be seen. Not far off is the Torre dell'Epitaffio, which takes its name from an inscription of 1568 put up by the viceroy of Naples to warn travellers that they were entering the Kingdom.

The present name is recent and has a funny history. Until 1862 the town was called Monticelli, but after the unification of Italy there were too many Monticelli and a change was needed: the council chose Monte San Vito, then found that this name too was taken, and in the same year decided again, this time for the patron saint. Earlier still, the town had come close to disappearing: in 1637 it was almost uninhabited because of the malaria of the Fondi plain, and it took the reclamation ordered by princess Anna Carafa and the arrival of people from the mountains to bring it back, by the end of the century, to 1,429 souls.