Anagni

Recent discoveries indicate that the town was populated by Etruscans in the VII century BC, and that it was perhaps a commercial center in which they had trade with peoples from Magna Grecia. It was already known that Anagni was in relationship with Rome since the age of Lucius Tarquinius Superbus. With the Urbs they were allied until the Romans (306 BC) asked for the dissolution of the Confoederatio Hernica, a federation with the Hernici. At that time Anagni was a sacred town, in which many Roman Emperors used to spend their holidays (Marcus Aurelius, Commodus, Caracalla).

In the Middle Ages, it became a political center of international relevance, also because several important popes were born here (pope Innocent III, pope Gregory IX, pope Alexander IV, pope Boniface VIII). It was the residence of the popes, and from its cathedral Frederick Barbarossa was excommunicated by pope Alexander III; after the defeat in Legnano[?], here the pactum Anagninum of 1176 was made which later led to the treaty of Venice).

The famous Outrage, which is presumably reported more as a legend than as a chronicle, is supposed to have consisted of a serious insult to the person of the pope Boniface VIII, by William of Nogaret[?] and the prince Sciarra Colonna.

External links

• The Outrage (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/1303anagni)