VELLETRI (anc. Velitrae)  , a town and episcopal see of the province of Rome, Italy, at the south-east foot of the outer ring wall of the Alban crater, 26 m . S.E. of Rome by rail, 1155 ft. above sea-level . Pop . (1901) 14,243 (town), 18,734 (commune) . It is the seat of the bishop of Ostia, and has a statue of Pope Clement VIII . Good wine is made in the fertile vineyards of the district, and there is a government experimentalstation for viticulture . Velletri is the junction of the Terracina line and a branch to Segni on the main line to Naples . Velletri has a fine view of the Volscian mountains and over the Pomptine Marshes to the Circeian promontory . The town contains a few objects of interest; at the highest point is the prominent municipal palace, containing a few ancient inscriptions; among them one relating to a restoration of the amphitheatre under Valentinian and Valens . The internal facade of the Palazzo Ginetti is. finely decorated with stucco, and has a curious detached baroque staircase by Martino Lunghi the younger, which Burckhardt calls unique if only for the view to which its arched colonnades serve as a frame . The lofty campanile of S . Maria in Trivio, erected in 1353 in gratitude for the liberation of the city from a plague which devastated it in 1348, is in the style of contemporary brick campanili in Rome, but.. built mainly of black selce, with white marble columns at the windows .

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cathedral (the see of the titular bishop of Ostia) was reconstructed in 166o, but contains traces of the older structure . Of the ancient town nothing practically remains above ground; scanty traces of the city walls have been excavated (and covered again) near the railway station, and the present walls are entirely medieval . The ancient city of Velitrae was Volscian in Republican times, and it is the only Volscian town of which an inscription in that language is preserved (4th century B.C.) . It mentions the two principal magistrates as medix . It was, however, a member of the Latin League in 499 B.C., so that in origin it may have been Latin and have fallen into Volscian hands later . It was important as commanding the approach to the valley between the Alban and Volscian mountains . In 494 it was taken from the Volscian and became a Roman colony . This was strengthened in 404, but in 393 Velitrae regained its freedom and, was Rome's strongest opponent; it was only reduced in 338, when the freedom of Latium finally perished . Its resistance was punished by Qthe destruction of its walls and the banishment of its town councillors to Etruria, while their lands were handed over to Roman colonists . We hear little or nothing of it subsequently except as the home of the gees Octavia, to which the Emperor Augustus belonged . The neighbourhood contains some remains of villas, but not proportionately very many; there are more on the side . towards Lanuvium (W.) . The Via Appia passed considerably below the town (some 5 M. away), which was reached by a branch road from it, diverging at the post station of Sublanuvio: During the whole of the middle ages it was subject to the papacy .

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