Nettuno

Nettuno is a town and comune of the Metropolitan City of Rome in the Lazio region of central Italy, 60 kilometres (37 miles) south of Rome. A resort city and agricultural center on the Tyrrhenian Sea, in the Mediterranean Sea it has a population of approximately 46,000.

Its name is perhaps in honour of the Roman god Neptune.

History

According to a theory, the town would be a direct survival of the Roman Antium, which territory almost entirely corresponded to Nettuno and modern Anzio. Giuseppe Tomassetti considered Nettuno the real heir and continuer settlement of the ancient Antiates. Instead Beatrice Cacciotti doubted about an ancient and not medieval origin of the town.

Indeed, Nettuno and nearby Anzio were the theatre of an Allied forces landing and the ensuing Anzio-Nettuno battle during World War II: the Operation Shingle. American forces (5th Army) were surrounded by Germans in the caves of Pozzoli in February 1944 for a week, suffering heavy casualties.

Main sights

Nettuno is a popular tourist destination. Sights include a well-preserved old quarter, the Borgo Medievale, with mediaeval streets and small squares, and the Forte Sangallo, a castle built in 1503 by Renaissance architect Antonio da Sangallo the Elder.

Nettuno is also a center of pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint Maria Goretti, in which a crypt houses the mortal remains of the saint. The church keeps also a priceless polychromed wooden statue of Our Lady of Grace, which is honoured by the town with a procession every year the first Saturday of May. It was originally Our Lady of Ipswich, although it left England after the Reformation.

The privately owned Villa Costaguti-Borghese at Nettuno, built 1648, has extensive gardens in a landscape park designed about 1840, now protected as a nature reserve. The Borghese Gladiator was discovered at Nettuno.

At the north edge of town is the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery and Memorial, where over 7,800 U.S. soldiers are buried.