History
Terracina settled on the south – eastern part of the Pontine valley on Ausoni mounts feet, is made up of a medieval centre on the hill and a modern part in the plan till the sea. There are many legends about its origins. The most famous says that a group of Spartan who fled from their Country, landed on the Tyrrhenian coast, where they established a village. These exiles maintained their habits and costumes, as the tradition to offer a dinner to their guest not on a rich table but on the naked floor (for this reason the name of the city). The most sure news say that its origins arrive from Volsci clan who lived in Latium between the VI and IV cent and gave it the name Anxur, as their Patron. The city reached its maximum splendour during the imperial period, when the sea traffic grew so much that Traiano the emperor ordered that the port was enlarged. Nowadays is possible to see the primitive structure. The importance of Terracina is due to its position: along the Via Appia, it assure a connection with Rome and the southern regions.
Improving this passage of the Appia that during the empire of Traiano the Pisco Montano (a big rock mount that arrives directly on sea) was cut, dividing the spur from the Saint Angelo Mount and allowing that the street could pass in the middle. This opera converted the life of the city towards the port that slowly left the high medieval part. The ruins of the ancient time are in the high part and among them the Anxur Temple, which dominates the extremity of Saint Angelo Mount, Venditti Palace and the Emiliano Foro, where the Romanic Cathedral was built in the XIII cent. Since XI cent became an asset of the Church, and in Terracina, border-city between the Papal State and the Reign of Naples, took place the Conclave in which the pope Urban II was named, it was the promoter of the I Crusade to release the Holy lands. The local tradition preserves the memory of this pope in the Saint Cesareo Cathedral where the papal marble seat, used by Urban II, is. Lately the city was contented by the local lordship, by Frangipane, by Annibaldi, by the counts of Fondi. In the 1800 it went back definitely to the Pope. In that period the pope was Pio VI, who started the Reclamation of the lands of the Pontine marshes, built a new hamlet, named Borgo Pio or Marina, and the project of Saint Salvatore Temple. The economy of Terracina is based on touristic, agricultural and commercial activities. There is a beach tourism, along more than fifteen km of beach, that from the city arrive till Saint Felice Circeo, and a hill tourism. The hills of Terracina are protected in the Campo Soriano Park.
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