Arpino is a comune

Comune

In Italy, the comune is the basic administrative division, and may be properly approximated in casual speech by the English word township or municipality.-Importance and function:...

(municipality) in the province of Frosinone

Province of Frosinone

The Province of Frosinone is a province in the Lazio region of Italy, with 91 comuni . Its capital is the city of Frosinone. It has an area of 3,244 km², and a total population of 489,042 .The Province was established by Royal Decree on 6 December 1926 with territories belonging to Lazio...

 in the region of Latium

Latium

Lazio is one of the 20 administrative regions of Italy, situated in the central peninsular section of the country. With about 5.7 million residents and a GDP of more than 170 billion euros, Lazio is the third most populated and the second richest region of Italy...

 in central Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

. Its Roman name was Arpinum.

History

The ancient city of Arpinum dates back to at least the 7th century BC. Connected with the Pelasgi, the Volscian and Samnite

Samnium

Samnium is a Latin exonym for a region of south or south and central Italy in Roman times. The name survives in Italian today, but today's territory comprising it is only a small portion of what it once was. The populations of Samnium were called Samnites by the Romans...

 people, it was captured by the Romans

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 and made a civitas sine suffragio in 305 BC. The city gained Roman suffrage in 188 BC and the status of a municipium in 90 BC. Both Gaius Marius

Gaius Marius

Gaius Marius was a Roman general and statesman. He was elected consul an unprecedented seven times during his career. He was also noted for his dramatic reforms of Roman armies, authorizing recruitment of landless citizens, eliminating the manipular military formations, and reorganizing the...

 and Cicero

Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...

 were natives of Arpinum.

In the early Middle Ages, its strategic position had it contended between the Roman duchy and the Duchy of Benevento

Duchy of Benevento

The Duchy and later Principality of Benevento was the southernmost Lombard duchy in medieval Italy, centred on Benevento, a city central in the Mezzogiorno. Owing to the Ducatus Romanus of the popes, which cut it off from the rest of Lombard Italy, Benevento was from the first practically...

. After the 11th century it was ruled by the Normans, the Hohenstaufen

Hohenstaufen

The House of Hohenstaufen was a dynasty of German kings in the High Middle Ages, lasting from 1138 to 1254. Three of these kings were also crowned Holy Roman Emperor. In 1194 the Hohenstaufens also became Kings of Sicily...

 and by the Papal States. It was destroyed twice; in 1229 by Frederick II

Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

Frederick II , was one of the most powerful Holy Roman Emperors of the Middle Ages and head of the House of Hohenstaufen. His political and cultural ambitions, based in Sicily and stretching through Italy to Germany, and even to Jerusalem, were enormous...

 and in 1242 by Conrad IV

Conrad IV of Germany

Conrad IV was king of Jerusalem , of Germany , and of Sicily .-Biography:...

.

The famous castrato

Castrato

A castrato is a man with a singing voice equivalent to that of a soprano, mezzo-soprano, or contralto voice produced either by castration of the singer before puberty or one who, because of an endocrinological condition, never reaches sexual maturity.Castration before puberty prevents a boy's...

 sopranist

Sopranist

A sopranist is a male singer who is able to sing in the vocal tessitura of a soprano usually through the use of falsetto vocal production. This voice type is a specific kind of countertenor...

 Gioacchino Conti

Gioacchino Conti

Gioacchino Conti , best known as Gizziello, was an Italian soprano castrato opera singer.-Biography:Conti was born in Arpino...

, known as Il Gizziello, or heb ceilliau was born in Arpino, in 1714.

There are 210 families in Arpino bearing the surname ' Rea '. Many descendants of Arpino-born emigrants with this surname now live in Scotland, Northern England and the USA.

Main sights

Attractions include the circuit walls in polygonal masonry

Polygonal masonry

Polygonal masonry is a technique of stone construction of the ancient Mediterranean world. True polygonal masonry may be defined as a technique wherein the visible surfaces of the stones are dressed with straight sides or joints, giving the block the appearance of a polygon.This technique is found...