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Valmontone is a comune (municipality) in the Province of Rome in the Italian region Lazio, located about 45 km southeast of Rome.
The historic part of the town is situated on a tuffaceous hill, 303 meters over the sea level, part of a morphological system of valleys and low relieves, known as Alta Valle del Sacco (High Valley of Sacco River). The underground is rich of water and this causes the presence of many natural springs: for this reason the landscape is covered by forests and farmlands.
To preserve this water system, in Valmontone exists the C.E.R.I., a center for the prevention and control of hydro-geological risks.
The origins of Valmontone are uncertain: it seems that a village was founded before the rise of Rome on a hill in the modern municipality of the town, and its ruins were visible until the 18th century. Perhaps these are the remains of the ancient Labicum, which, according to the myth, was founded by Glaucus, Minos’ son: the name of the village derives from a kind of Greek shield. Labicum was in war against Rome, but at last it was defeated and became a Roman castrum, a fortified castle: other testimonies of the Roman period are the post-station Ad Bivium, situated along the road called Via Latina, a village of coal-makers, some furnaces for tiles and vases, a villa and some other remains (two sarcophagus, memorial plates).
Later on, the castle was rebuilt on the actual site in the Late Roman Empire. The presence of a Castrum Lateranense goes back to the 1052, while the name of Vallis Montonis (Valmontone means “a valley overhung by a little hill”) appears the first time in a document dated 1139. Valmontone became a fief under the Conti family until the 16th century, when, in 1548, the fief passed under the Sforza: then, in 1632 and for a few years, under the Barberini, until Camillo Pamphilj bought Valmontone (1634). The Pamphilj family became Doria-Landi-Pamphilj in the 18th century. In 1843 Valmontone assumed the rank of “city” by decision of Pope Gregory XVI.
In 1944, Allies programmed the Operation Shingle in order to regain Rome: Valmontone was an important objective on the way to Rome, in according to the Operation Diadem, May-June 1944. So, during the Second World War, Allies thought the Nazi forces were garrisoning the city, so they bombed Valmontone with airplanes, nearly destroying it completely: Valmontone lost 80% of its ancient buildings, like the fortified gates, the monastery on Colle Sant’Angelo, fountains, churches. With the post-war reconstruction the town lost its medieval and baroque appeal, of which only a few sights survive.