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Anagni Anagni, Anagnia, is an ancient town in Latium, Italy, in the hills east-southeast of Rome, famous for its connections with the papacy and for the picturesque monuments of its unspoiled historical center. Recent discoveries indicate that the town was populated by Etruscans in the 7th century BC, and that it was perhaps a commercial center from which they had trade with Magna Graecia. Anagni was in contact with Rome in the age of Lucius Tarquinius Superbus. With the Urbs they were allied until the Romans (306 BC) attacked Anagni and dissolved the Confederatio Hernicae, a federation with the Hernici, for whom Anagni was the spiritual center. In Imperial times, while many Roman Emperors used to spend the heat of summer there, Anagni retained its reputation as a sacred Etruscan town: in the 2nd century AD Marcus Aurelius noted that Anagni still conserved many linen books of sacred writings (of which there is a sole survivor, the Liber Linteus). Commodus and Caracalla) also enjoyed Anagni. Their example was followed by popes, from the 12th century onwards. A measure of Anagni's importance in pagan cult is that its church claims to be of apostolic foundation, a diocese not overseen by a bishop but under the immediate jurisdiction of the Holy See, even though a bishop of Anagni first appears in the 5th century, when Felix its bishop attended the Lateran Synod of 487 and bishop Fortunatus was among the signatories of the Acts of the Synod of 499, according to Theodor Mommsen's history of Rome. Zachary of Anagni was the legate of pope Nicholas I at the synod held in Constantinople in 851 to decide the validity of the election of Photius to the patriarchate. In 896 Stephen, bishop of Anagni became pope. In the high Middle Ages, several important popes, all members of the Conti family, were born here (pope Innocent III, pope Gregory IX, who fled here from the fury of the Roman mob in 1272, pope Alexander IV, pope Boniface VIII). Anagni was the summer residence of the popes, and at the Council of Anagni in 1160, pope Alexander III, surrounded by his cardinals and bishops, solemnly excommunicated Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, the Pfalzgraf Otto, and their followers, and absolved their subjects from their oath of allegiance. The pope was surrounded by prelates bearing torches, which were extinguished at the excommunication, plunging the cathedral into darkness. After the defeat in Legnano, here the pactum Anagninum ("the Agreement of Anagni") of 1176 was made, which later led to the treaty of Venice). Here pope Adrian IV died. Even an antipope, Anacletus II, found refuge at Anagni (in 1133 - 1134). Anagni's most notorious event, the Outrage of Anagni in September 1303, arose from the intemperate reaction of King Philip IV of France's ministers to Boniface VIII's arrogant bull Unam sanctam issued in 1302, which arrogated to the pope absolute supremacy over every earthly power. In the heated atmosphere of controversy that had built up over a generation, the ruthless French ministry stooped to kidnapping the pope, expecting to abduct him to France to face trumped-up charges that included heresy. (Boniface's remark that he would prefer to be a dog than be a Frenchman was cynically expanded to a supposed heretical opinion of the soul.) The Pope's implacable enemy, William of Nogaret, was dispatched in a secret mission to remove Boniface from his palace at Anagni, where he was preparing a bull excommunicating the King. With the support of personal enemies of Boniface, such as Sciarra Colonna, among the Italian nobility, and possibly with the connivance of some of the cardinals, it took the loyal people of Anagni and some armed Caetani relatives of Boniface to free him and escort him back to Rome, where he shortly died of a stroke. The shock to the prestige of the papacy was felt even by Dante, who had condemned Boniface in the Divine Comedy and who refused to consider his bitterly contested election legal. "The new Pilate" had imprisoned the Vicar of Christ, he wrote. Coat of arms Its coat of arms include an eagle over the lion and the letters S.P.Q.A. The label is in Latin, HERNICA SAXA COLUNT QUOS DIVES ANAGNIA PASCIT. Bordering communes Reference Norman F. Cantor, The Civilization of the Middle Ages 1993. External links
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