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Arpino

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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(anc. Arpinum), a town of Campania, Italy, in the province of Caserta, 1475 ft. above sea-level; 12 m. by rail N.W. of Roccasecca, a station on the railway from Naples to Rome. Pop. (1901) 10,607. Arpino occupies the lower part of the site of the ancient Volscian town of Arpinum, which was finally taken from the Samnites by the Romans in 305 B.C. It became a civitas sine suffragio, but received full privileges (civitas cum suffragio) in 188 B.C. with Formiae and Fundi; it was governed as a praefectura until the Social War, and then became a municipium. The ancient polygonal walls, which are still finely preserved, are among the best in Italy. They are built of blocks of pudding-stone, originally well jointed, but now much weathered. They stand free in places to a height of II ft., and are about 7 ft. wide at the top. A single line of wall, with medieval round towers at intervals, runs on the north side from the present town to Civitavecchia (2055 ft.), on the site of the ancient citadel. Here is the Porta dell' Arco, a gate of the old wall, with an aperture 15 ft. high, formed by the gradual inclination of the two sides towards one another. Below Arpino, in the valley of the Liris, between the two arms of its tributary the Fibrenus, and 4 m. north of Isola del Liri, lies the church of S. Domenico, which marks the site of the villa in which Cicero was born and frequently resided. Near it is an ancient bridge, of a road which crossed the Liris to Cereatae (modern Casamari). The painter Giuseppe Cesari (1560-1640), more often known as the Cavaliere d'Arpino, was also born here.

See O. E. Schmidt, Arpinum, eine topographisch-historische Skizze (Meissen, 1900). (T. As.)