Aquino (a town of approximately 5,000 inhabitants in the Liri river valley, Frosinone province, 130km southeast of Rome on Via Latina) has the specific distinction of being the birthplace of Thomas Aquinas (Tommaso d'Aquino, born approximately 1225 at the Roccasecca castle 5km north of Aquino, the youngest son of the Aquino noble family that held the territory as vassals of the Kingdom of Sicily and the Holy Roman Empire). Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274, the Dominican friar, theologian, and philosopher whose Summa Theologiae is the foundational synthesis of Christian theology and Aristotelian philosophy, and whose specific influence on Western Christian thought from the 13th century to the present has been exceeded by no other medieval thinker) grew up in this Liri valley environment, was educated at the Montecassino abbey (15km south) as an oblate, and then at the University of Naples before joining the Dominicans against his family's wishes, his family kidnapped him and held him at Roccasecca for over a year in an attempt to force him out of the friars' habit before releasing him.
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Aquino: Ancient Aquinum and Aquinas Heritage
Ancient Aquinum
Ancient Aquinum (the Roman colony on Via Latina, founded as a Latin colony approximately 293 BC, a municipium from 89 BC, and a significant road-side city of the Campania Felix region in the Roman period) has left specific archaeological traces in the modern Aquino territory: the amphitheater (partially excavated, visible in a field adjacent to Via Latina), sections of the city walls, and the capitolium platform (the temple precinct of the three Capitoline deities at the summit of the ancient city). The Museo Civico di Aquino (in the town center) presents the finds from the Aquinum excavations, inscriptions, sculpture, architectural fragments. The specific Aquinum curiosity: the poet Juvenal (Decimus Junius Juvenalis, the satirist who wrote the Satires documenting the social realities of 1st-2nd century Rome) was probably born at Aquinum, making the town the origin of both the most important Christian philosopher and the most acerbic Roman satirist.
The Thomas Aquinas Circuit
The Thomas Aquinas heritage circuit in the Liri valley: Aquino (the town center, Via Aquino, the Sant'Eleuterio Martyrium, the early Christian building traditionally associated with the Aquino Christian community, now integrated into Via Latina archaeological area). Roccasecca (the hilltop castle 5km north where Thomas was born and held by his family, the castle ruins and the adjacent Cistercian monastery). Montecassino (15km south, the abbey where Thomas received his early education and whose library he used throughout his career). The three sites together constitute the most complete physical documentation of Thomas Aquinas's Lazio origins available.
Q&A: Aquino
What is Thomas Aquinas's significance for the modern visitor?
Thomas Aquinas is the single most influential philosopher in the history of Catholic Christianity, his synthesis of Aristotle and Christian theology (the Thomistic tradition, still the official philosophical framework of Catholic teaching as confirmed by the Second Vatican Council) shaped the intellectual tradition of European civilization from the 13th century onward in ways that aren't reducible to theology: Aquinas's arguments on natural law, just war theory, and the relationship between reason and faith are the foundational texts of Western philosophical ethics. The Aquino birthplace is therefore not merely a devotional site but the geographical origin of one of the most consequential intellectual traditions in Western history.
Internal Links
- Valle del Liri: Il Contesto di Aquino
- Ciociaria: Aquino e Val di Comino
- Montecassino: La Battaglia e l'Abbazia di Aquino
- Ciociaria Storica: I Borghi della Via Latina
- Tommaso d'Aquino: La Filosofia e il Medioevo
- Ciociaria Fuori Stagione: Cultura e Silenzio
- Aquinum Romana: Fotografare le Rovine Via Latina
