Civitas Sancti Maximi Archaeological Site, L’Aquila

In the Middle Valley of the Aterno River, near the Civita di Bagno hamlet, lies the archaeological site of the medieval Civitas Sancti Maximi, in Comitatu Furconensi. In recent years, numerous excavation campaigns have uncovered an interesting monumental complex testifying to the presence of a settlement from the Late Republican Age. The epigraphic data and discovered artifacts help provide a complete picture of the area. Indeed, many archaeological findings were already known in the inhabited center, as among the more recent buildings stand—and still stand—sections of walls, the Roman structures beneath the ancient Cathedral of San Massimo, the remains of a thermal complex incorporated into the foundations of the sixteenth-century Villa Oliva building, the temple dedicated to Feronia, found and reburied in the seventies, as well as numerous funerary and dedicatory inscriptions confirming the existence of a Roman-era inhabited center.