Bassiano

Bassiano sits at 562 meters on a ridge of the Monti Lepini, the highest commune in the province of Latina. The medieval village is built in a spiral that climbs to the summit where the Caetani fortress once stood. Its walls, raised by the Caetani at the end of the thirteenth century, run with nine towers and three gates still intact.

Aldo Manuzio was born here between 1449 and 1452. He moved to Venice, founded the Aldine Press, gave the world italic type and the enchiridia, the small portable book in octavo, predecessor of the modern paperback. The Palazzo Caetani in the centro storico now houses the Museo delle Scritture Aldo Manuzio, opened in 2009 with La Sapienza University, dedicated to the history of the written word.

The Chiesa di Sant'Erasmo holds a Romanesque baptismal font and fourteenth-century frescoes. From the belvedere at the top of the spiral, the Pontine plain opens out toward the Tyrrhenian, and on a clear morning the Circeo promontory closes the horizon.