In the Middle Ages, Anagni was the most prestigious city in this region, the birthplace of Popes Innocent III and Gregory IX, and later Boniface VIII, institutor of the first Jubilee, and a leading exponent of temporal power and protagonist of the European political events of the time.
The imposing papal palace of Boniface VIII, in the historical centre of the city, not far from the Cathedral of Santa Maria, is an example of Anagni’s “central” position. It was this pope who, among other things, spread the fame of the thermal waters of Fiuggi.
The region’s importance also extended to the Benedictine and Cistercian monasteries, such as the Abbey of Montecassino, Casamari, and the Certosa di Trisulti.
Again in Ciociaria, Roccasecca can boast of being the birthplace of St. Thomas Aquinas who with his Summa Theologiae, rightly takes his place next to the great scholars of the Catholic Church.
Finally, near Alatri, we find the magnificent village of Fumone. Celestino V was imprisoned in the fortress here after the renunciation of the pontificate (an episode also recalled by Dante in the Divine Comedy “he who for cowardice made the great refusal”).