Fondi (the Pontine plain town in the province of Latina, 100km south of Rome on Via Appia Nuova between Terracina and the Campania border) is one of those southern Lazio towns that appears in the historical sources with a frequency disproportionate to its current tourist visibility: ancient Fundi (on Via Appia, at the point where the road enters the plain below the Aurunci mountains) was a Roman municipium, a mandatory stop on the consular road, and the specific town where Horace mentions stopping in his famous account of the journey to Brindisi in the Satires. In the medieval period, the Caetani family (the papal dynasty that produced Boniface VIII and that held the Pontine coast and plain as their fiefdom in the 13th-14th centuries) made Fondi the capital of their southern territory and built the castle that still dominates the town center. In the early modern period, the Council of Fondi (1537, the anti-papal council called by the Colonna family and supported by the Emperor Charles V, which elected the anti-pope Bartolomeo Pirovano in opposition to Paul III) gave Fondi a brief moment of European significance before the episode collapsed.
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Fondi: Town, Lake, and Food
The Caetani Castle
The Castello Caetani (the 13th-century castle in the center of Fondi, built by the Caetani family as the administrative center of their Pontine territory. Boniface VIII, the Caetani pope famous for the Jubilee of 1300 and for his conflict with Philip IV of France that ended in the Anagni humiliation, was born here in 1235) is partially open for visits and houses the municipal museum. The castle exterior (the massive square towers, the machiolations, the drawbridge replaced by a fixed bridge) dominates the central piazza of Fondi and is the primary architectural monument of the town.
Lago di Fondi and the Bufala Tradition
The Lago di Fondi (the coastal lagoon 5km south of Fondi town, separated from the Tyrrhenian sea by a narrow sand bar) is the territory of the specific local fishing tradition (the eel and mullet fishing in the brackish lake) and the broader Pontine plain bufala mozzarella production zone. The buffalo herds that graze the Pontine reclaimed land from Fondi south to the Campania border produce the milk for the mozzarella di bufala that the local caseifici make fresh each morning, the Fondi area producers (direct sales at the caseifici on the SP Appia Nuova) sell at prices 30-40% below the retail equivalent.
Q&A: Fondi
What is Fondi worth visiting for specifically?
Three specific reasons: the Thursday morning market (one of the largest weekly markets in southern Lazio, the fruit, vegetable, cheese, and olive oil production of the Fondi agricultural basin on direct sale). The fresh bufala mozzarella from the local caseifici (superior to anything available in Rome at the same price point). And the castle and medieval center (authentically unrenovated, with the specific character of a functioning southern Lazio market town rather than a tourist destination). The Fondi lake for bird-watching (the lagoon is a significant bird migration waypoint) as an additional half-hour.
