Social Program

We have an exciting social program planned for the EUROMECH-Colloquium 579 in Arpino including the Welcome Reception , conference Dinners and post-conference tours . We plan to show you the best of Italian hospitality; stunning venues, delicious food and drinks.

Tuesday, 4 April 2017 – Visit to Anagni

Anagni , was a prosperous town in antiquity, but some stretches of supporting walls are the only evidence of that period; the Romans did not hesitate to build massive walls to prevent landslides, a real danger for Anagni which is located between two ravines. Similar to Avignon and Viterbo, Anagni is called the town of the popes because four popes were born there and several others resided there; Pope Adrian IV, the only English pope (Nicholas Breakspeare), died at Anagni in 1159. Read more

Bonifacio VIII’s Palace, was the home-fortress of the popes of Anagni.Although the name recalls the only property of the famous pope of the “Slap”, the firstdomus towered almost certainly to Lotario of the Conti of Segni, Pope, as Innocent III,from 1198; then, in the early thirteenth century, Ugolino Conti, pope from 1227 with the name of Gregory IX, expanded the building, transforming it into an elegant baronial mansion while maintaining strong military accents. In 1230 he hosted the Emperor Frederick II, freed from censorship in 1227 and arrived in Anagni “with splendid competition principles and elders”: the two sat down at the table with skillful diplomat Hermann von Salza. Federico had a vision of a magnificent mansion, which he later called “admirable,… as the direction of the sun” and wrote of that meeting: “We visited with reverence the supreme pontiff, who welcomed us with fatherly affection and with him we exchanged the kiss of peace, thus sanctioning the peace of hearts …”. Read more

Anagni Cathedral is a magnificent Romanesque edifice that should be more famous than it is. In addition to imposing castle-like architecture, it contains a crypt covered in beautifully-preserved medieval frescoes of biblical stories, saints and scientific diagrams. Read more

Thursday, 6 April 2017 – Visit to Civitavecchia and the Pointed Arch in Arpino

Civitavecchia was probably the original nucleus of a primitive Volscian settlement (7th-6th century) built as a defence on a place high and steep and then fortified by massive walls. The greatness of these walls, that can be seen in other towns of the Volscians (Atina, Aquinum, Sora, Signia, Arcis) and of the Ernicians (Aletrium), suggested popular imagination to call them pelasgian in memory of the mytical pre-Hellenic Pelasgians or Cyclopeans, Homer’s giants. Yet, they should be called polygonal because of the shape of the big stones which stand one upon the other without mortar. Read more