The Latium

Latium is a mysterious land. It is a land of woods and pastures, hills and valleys, rivers and lakes, with as many as twenty-five nature parks and reserves. The land is washed by a blue sea, with a whole archipelago lying just a few miles off the coast.
It is a harsh land, which only seems to be unknown. In its heart lies Rome, the Eternal City, which calls people from all over to see its Roman ruins, Renaissance squares and baroque churches. Rome is a compendium, illustrating the evolution of architecture from Roman times to the present day.
Latium is the region that surrounds the city which a frame that is all history and landscape. The landscape is history in its own right, the product of men and men's activities, their thoughts and their imaginatiion, forming a symbiiosis of landscape, history and art. Hills and gorges, karst caves and extinct volcanoes, cliffs and caves by the sea, are perhaps the most artistic aspect of the work of nature; solitary sanctuaries and tumble-down churches, dead towns and little villages perched on high spurs of tufa, poles of art and faith bear witness to man's ascendancy over the environment. And since man's work is commonly considered an art, we may say that, in the variegated and complicated territory of Latium, man compares well with nature, equalling its beauty.

Territory: The region, with undulated hills, stretches from the western buttresses of the Apennines to the Tyrrhenian Sea. The landscape is varied and presents flatlands, on the coastline and in the hinterland, ridges and calcareous highlands. Latium has four very ancient volcanic distincts, where the craters of extinct volcanoes form the lakes of Bolsena, Vico, Bracciano, Albano and Nemi.

Cities: Rome, capital of Italy, as well of the region. Other important cities are Frosinone, Latina, Viterbo and Rieti.

Rome:
Cradle of the western civilization and the heart of Christianity, Rome is the one city in the world that possesses the most masterpieces.
Under the wonderfully pure sky, the toll of some hundred bells breaks the silence of its majestic and very ancient monuments, its narrow and shady center streets, the small hidden squares, the gushing fountains, the incredibly green gardens, the silent and enigmatic people and its millions of marble statues.
The extraordinary richness of the artistic, historic, and religious patrimony, the lively markets, the old gastronomic traditions and the "dolce vita", render the Eternal City one of the main destinations of international tourism.

Frosinone:
Frosinone, ancient city founded by the Volsci on a hill overlooking the plain of the river Sacco, is the historical capital of Ciociaria.
Despite its ancient origin, it is difficult to find traces of the past; many changes have taken place during the centuries, many plunderings and, more recently, the second World War has caused serious damage to the urban and architectural layout of this city.
Yet Frosinone is today a pleasant and modern city, which deserves to be visited and discovered through its streets, piazzas, monuments and picturesque flowery spots.
Rieti:
Die Geschichte von Rieti beginnt in der Eisenzeit. Der Name von Rieti, das älter ist als Rom, an dessen Schicksal es in den späteren Jahrhunderten gebunden war, leitet sich ab von Rea, Mutter aller Götter. Rieti war das wichtigste Zentrum der Verbreitung im Prozess der von den Sabinern seit dem 8. Jh. v. Chr. durchgeführten Kolonisierung. Eine Perle unter vielen aus dem Kunstschatz von Rieti ist das Stadttheater Tito Flavio Vespasiano, das von Kritikern und Experten als eines der schönsten Italiens auf dem Gebiet der Theaterarchitektur betrachtet wird, vor allem wegen der hervorragenden Akustik.


Art: Latium is the cradle of Roman civilization and it is incredibly rich in outstanding relics of the different periods. The traces of the Etruscan civilization are remarkable and can be found at Veio, Vulci, Tarquinia and Cerveteri. The region has always been the center of an intensive artistic life, which, from the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century, has had as cardinal point the presence of the Church (the Vatican City, seat of the papacy, is in the heart of Rome).

Museums: In Rome, the National Museum houses the most important archaeologic collections in the world, while the Capitoline Museum holds the oldest classic sculptures. In the Museum of the Palazzo dei Conservatori, Greek and Roman sculptures. Etruscan vases, paleochristian sarcophagi can be admired. The Pinacoteca Capitolina houses remarkables pictorial works. In the Museum of Rome there are civic documents, from the Middle Ages to the present day. Tourists should not omit a visit to the Barracco Museum, with Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian and Etruscan relics arid to the National Museum of Castel Sant’Angelo. The Doria Pamphili Gallery houses a highly valuable private pictorial collection Moreover, there are: the National Gallery of Ancient Art; the Borghese Museum and Gallery; the National Museum of Villa Giulia. The imposing complex of the Vatican Museums contains numberless outstanding masterpieces.

To be visited: In the center of Rome, we can admire the Roman Forum, the imposing arid universally known Colosseum and the Cathedral of St. Peter. Visitors can admire the archaeologic excavations, visit the quaint quarter of Trastevere, go to Tivoli to see Villa Adriana.

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