Priverno is a town 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 Latina

Province of Latina

The Province of Latina is a province in the Lazio region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Latina.It has an area of 2,251 km², and a total population of 519,850...

, Lazio, 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...

.

It has a station of the Rome-Naples railway mainline. Nearby is the 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....

 chain.

History

Privernum is described by 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...

 as a flourishing Volscian site, which was conquered and destroyed 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....

 in the late 4th century BC. The Appian Way

Appian Way

The Appian Way was one of the earliest and strategically most important Roman roads of the ancient republic. It connected Rome to Brindisi, Apulia, in southeast Italy...

 passed nearby. The town recovered under the Roman rule, but disappeared after the fall of the Western Roman Empire

Western Roman Empire

The Western Roman Empire was the western half of the Roman Empire after its division by Diocletian in 285; the other half of the Roman Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire, commonly referred to today as the Byzantine Empire....

, probably destroyed by Saracen

Saracen

Saracen was a term used by the ancient Romans to refer to a people who lived in desert areas in and around the Roman province of Arabia, and who were distinguished from Arabs. In Europe during the Middle Ages the term was expanded to include Arabs, and then all who professed the religion of Islam...

 attacks.

It was later a minor center of the Papal States

Papal States

The Papal State, State of the Church, or Pontifical States were among the major historical states of Italy from roughly the 6th century until the Italian peninsula was unified in 1861 by the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia .The Papal States comprised territories under...

, to which it belonged until the capture of Rome

Capture of Rome

The Capture of Rome was the final event of the long process of Italian unification known as the Risorgimento, which finally unified the Italian peninsula under King Victor Emmanuel II of the House of Savoy...

 in 1870.

Main sights

Nearby is the famous Abbey of Fossanova, which is where the town's patron saint, St. Thomas Aquinas died on March 7, 1274. Also notable are the churches of:

• Santa Maria Assunta (Cathedral), consecrated by Pope Lucius II in 1183. It houses a panel of the Madonna d'Agosto, and St. Thomas' skull.
• San Benedetto, built by the Benedictines from the 7th century AD; it includes 13th and 16th centuries frescoes
• San Giovanni Evengelista (c. 9th century, rebuilt in the 13th century). It has 13th-15th century frescoes, includign stories of St. Catherine (14th century), a Madonna with Child (15th century)
• San Tommaso d'Aquino (13th century)
• San Nicola (13th century)

Lay buildings include the Villa Gallio, a residence of Cardinal Bartolomeo Gallio, the Communal Palace (13th century), with the Dolphin Fountain by Giuseppe Olivieri and the Porta San Marco and Porta Posterola, the only remains of the seven gates once giving access to Priverno. Remains of the old Privernum are located outside the town, including parts of the walls, baths, three partician houses and a temple. Here a colossal statue of Tiberius

Tiberius

Tiberius , was Roman Emperor from 14 AD to 37 AD. Tiberius was by birth a Claudian, son of Tiberius Claudius Nero and Livia Drusilla. His mother divorced Nero and married Augustus in 39 BC, making him a step-son of Octavian...

 (now in the Vatican Museum) was found in the late 18th century.