The Comino Valley, or Valle di Comino, is a valley located 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 central Italy. It runs from San Biagio Saracinisco

San Biagio Saracinisco

San Biagio Saracinisco is a comune in the Province of Frosinone in the Italian region Lazio, located about 120 km east of Rome and about 50 km east of Frosinone...

 to Vicalvi

Vicalvi

Vicalvi is a comune in the Province of Frosinone in the Italian region Lazio, located about 100 km east of Rome and about 30 km east of Frosinone...

 and is adjacent to the Abruzzi mountains. It grossly corresponds to the River Melfa

Melfa

This place name appears in a number of places.US*Melfa, VirginiaItaly*Melfa Crossing, site of a World War II battle at which Major John Keefer Mahony earned a VC for valour.*Melfa River in Parco Nazionale d'Abruzzo, Lazio e Molise...

's upper valley, which runs through it before joining the Liri River.

Its economy is based on the production of wine, olive oil, cheese and wheat, and on animal husbandry

Animal husbandry

Animal husbandry is the agricultural practice of breeding and raising livestock.- History :Animal husbandry has been practiced for thousands of years, since the first domestication of animals....

 (sheep

Domestic sheep

Sheep are quadrupedal, ruminant mammals typically kept as livestock. Like all ruminants, sheep are members of the order Artiodactyla, the even-toed ungulates. Although the name "sheep" applies to many species in the genus Ovis, in everyday usage it almost always refers to Ovis aries...

 and bovinae

Bovinae

The biological subfamily Bovinae includes a diverse group of 10 genera of medium to large sized ungulates, including domestic cattle, the bison, African buffalo, the water buffalo, the yak, and the four-horned and spiral-horned antelopes...

).

History

According to tradition, the name of the valley can be traced to ancient Cominium, destroyed in 293 BC. In Livy

Livy

Titus Livius — known as Livy in English — was a Roman historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people. Ab Urbe Condita Libri, "Chapters from the Foundation of the City," covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome well before the traditional foundation in 753 BC...

's History of Rome, there are early references to Cominium as the site of a battle between the Samnites and 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....

. Some suggest that the town of San Donato

San Donato Val di Comino

San Donato Val di Comino is a comune in the Province of Frosinone in the Italian region Lazio, located in the Comino Valley about 110 km east of Rome and about 40 km east of Frosinone...

 is the ancient Cominium, others believe the battle site was at Vicalvi

Vicalvi

Vicalvi is a comune in the Province of Frosinone in the Italian region Lazio, located about 100 km east of Rome and about 30 km east of Frosinone...

.

The area was however already settled in prehistoric times; later it was inhabited by Osco-Sabellian tribes. Its main center was Atina

Atina (FR)

Atina is a town and comune in the province of Frosinone, Lazio region of central Italy.Economy is mostly based on agriculture .-History:Atina was a town of the Samnites, later conquered by the Romans...

, mantioned in Virgil

Virgil

Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...

's Aeneid

Aeneid

The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is composed of roughly 10,000 lines in dactylic hexameter...

. In the Middle Ages, numerous castles were built in the valley, which was part of the Lombard

Lombards

The Lombards , also referred to as Longobards, were a Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin, who from 568 to 774 ruled a Kingdom in Italy...

 Duchy of Spoleto

Duchy of Spoleto

The independent Duchy of Spoleto was a Lombard territory founded about 570 in central Italy by the Lombard dux Faroald.- Lombards :The Lombards, a Germanic people, had invaded Italy in 568 and conquered much of it, establishing a Kingdom divided between several dukes dependent on the King, who had...

, the Principality of Capua

Principality of Capua

The Principality of Capua was a Lombard state in Southern Italy, usually de facto independent, but under the varying suzerainty of Western and Eastern Roman Empires. It was originally a gastaldate, then a county, within the principality of Salerno....

 and the county of Aquino

Aquino

Aquino is a town and comune in the province of Frosinone, in the Lazio region of Italy, 12 km northwest of Cassino.-History:The ancient Aquinum was a municipium in the time of Cicero, and made a colony by the Triumviri...

, until it became part of the Norman unified Kingdom of Naples

Kingdom of Naples

The Kingdom of Naples, comprising the southern part of the Italian peninsula, was the remainder of the old Kingdom of Sicily after secession of the island of Sicily as a result of the Sicilian Vespers rebellion of 1282. Known to contemporaries as the Kingdom of Sicily, it is dubbed Kingdom of...

. For a period it was also contented between the monasteries of Monte Cassino

Monte Cassino

Monte Cassino is a rocky hill about southeast of Rome, Italy, c. to the west of the town of Cassino and altitude. St. Benedict of Nursia established his first monastery, the source of the Benedictine Order, here around 529. It was the site of Battle of Monte Cassino in 1944...

 and San Vincenzo al Volturno

San Vincenzo al Volturno

San Vincenzo al Volturno is an historic Benedictine monastery located in the territories of the Comune of Castel San Vincenzo, in the Province of Isernia, near the source of the river Volturno in Italy...

. Later it was a fief of families such as the Aquino, Cantelmo, Borgia

Borgia

The Borgias, also known as the Borjas, Borjia, were a European Papal family of Italian and Spanish origin with the name stemming from the familial fief seat of Borja belonging to their Aragonese Lords; they became prominent during the Renaissance. The Borgias were patrons of the arts, and their...

 and Gallio.