Artena is a village and 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:...

in the province of Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

, 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...

. It is situated in the northwest of Monti Lepini

Monti Lepini

The Monti Lepini are a mountain range which belongs to the Anti-Apennines of the Lazio region of central Italy, between the two provinces of Latina and Rome....

, in the upper valley of the Sacco River

Sacco River

The Sacco is a river of central Italy, a right tributary of the Liri.The river is formed by the confluence of two streams of the Monti Simbruini in the Apennines of Abruzzo. It flows towards south-east for a total of 87 km, crossing Ciociaria between the mountain ranges of the Ernici to the...

. It is approximately 40 km southeast by rail, and 30 km direct from Rome.

Economy is based on agriculture, animal husbandry and tourism.

History

The name of the original village of the Volsci

Volsci

The Volsci were an ancient Italic people, well known in the history of the first century of the Roman Republic. They then inhabited the partly hilly, partly marshy district of the south of Latium, bounded by the Aurunci and Samnites on the south, the Hernici on the east, and stretching roughly from...

 is uncertain; Ecetra or Fortinum are possible suggestions.

In the Middle Ages it was a fief of various Roman baronal families, such as the Colonna, the Orsini and the Borghese.

The modern village was called Monte Fortino until 1873. It owes its present name to an unproven identification of the site with the ancient Volscian Artena, destroyed in 404 BC. Another Artena, which belonged to the district of Caere

Caere

Caere is the Latin name given by the Romans to one of the larger cities of Southern Etruria, the modern Cerveteri, approximately 50-60 kilometres north-northwest of Rome. To the Etruscans it was known as Cisra and to the Greeks as Agylla...

, and lay between it and Veii

Veii

Veii was, in ancient times, an important Etrurian city NNW of Rome, Italy; its site lies in Isola Farnese, a village of Municipio XX, an administrative subdivision of the comune of Rome in the Province of Rome...

, was destroyed in the period of the kings, and its site is unknown.

Main sights

On the mountain (600 km) above the village are the fine remains of the fortifications of a city built in a very primitive style, in cyclopean blocks of local limestone. Within the walls are traces of buildings, and a massive terrace which supported some edifice of importance.

Other sights include the Palazzo Borghese (17th century), and the churches of Santa Maria delle Letizie, Santa Croce, Santo Stefano Protomartire and San Francesco.