FONDI, a town of Lazio, Italy (anc. Fundi), province of Rome, 12 m. N.W. of Formia, and 69 m. S. of Rome by rail. The pop. of the commune 'in 1931 was 13,32o. It lies 25 ft. above sea-level, at the north end of a plain surrounded by moun tains, which extend to the sea. It occupies the site of the ancient Fundi, a Volscian town, belonging later to Latium adjectum, on the Via Appia, still represented by the modern high-road which passes through the centre of the town. It is rectangular in plan, and portions of its walls are preserved. The gate on the north east still exists, and bears the inscription of three aediles who erected the gate, the towers and the wall. In the neighbourhood are remains of ancient villas, and along the Via Appia still stands an ancient wall of opus reticulatum, with an inscription, in large letters, of one Varronianus, the letters being at intervals of 25 f t.
The modern town is still enclosed by the ancient walls. The castle on the south-east side has some 15th-century windows with beautiful tracery. Close by is the Gothic church of S. Pietro (formerly S. Maria), the cathedral until the see was united with that of Gaeta (1818). In the Dominican monastery the cell which St. Thomas Aquinas sometimes occupied is shown.
The ancient city of Fundi in 338 B.C. (or 332) received (with Formiae) limited, and in 188 B.C. full citizenship, because it had always secured the Romans safe passage through its territory. This was strategically important for the Romans, as the military road definitely constructed by Appius Claudius in 312 B.C., still easily traceable by its remains, and in part followed by the high-road, traversed a narrow pass, which could easily be blocked, between Fundi and Formiae. The family of Livia, the consort of Augustus, belonged to Fundi. During the Lombard invasions in 592 Fundi was temporarily abandoned, but it came under papal rule by 754. Pope John VIII. ceded it with its territory to Docibile, duke of Gaeta, but sometimes it appears as an inde pendent countship, though held by members of the Caetani fam ily, who about 1297 returned to it. In 1504 it was given to Prospero Colonna. In Khair-ed-Din Barbarossa tried to carry off Giulia Gonzaga, countess of Fondi, and sacked the city. In 1721 it was sold to the Di Sangro family, in which it still remains. Its position as a frontier town between the papal states and the kingdom of Naples, just in the territory of the latter--the Via Appia can easily be blocked either north-west at the actual frontier called Portella or south-east of it—affected it a good deal during the French Revolution and the events which led up to the unification of Italy.
The Lago di Fondi, in the middle of the plain, and the marshes surrounding it, compelled the Via Appia to make a considerable detour. The lake was also known in classical times as lacus Amyclanus, from the town of Amyclae or Amunclae, founded, according to legend, by Spartan colonists, and probably destroyed by the Oscans in the 5th century B.C. ; the bay was also known as mare Amunclanuin. The ancient Speluncae (mod. Sperlonga) on the coast also belonged to the territory of Fundi. Here was the imperial villa in which Sejanus saved the life of Tiberius, who was almost crushed by a fall of rock. Con siderable remains of it, and of the caves from which it took its name, still exist i m. S.E. of the modern village. Wine of the tiger Caecubus, the coast plain round the Lago di Fundi, was praised by Horace. The plain of Fondi is the northernmost point in Italy where the cultivation of oranges and lemons is regularly carried on in modern times.
See T. Ashby, in English Historical Review, xix. (1904) 557 seq. for a notice of Italian works on the subject. (T. A.)