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Fondi (; Southern Laziale: Fùnn) is a city and comune in the province of Latina, Lazio, central Italy, halfway between Rome and Naples. As of 2017, the city had a population of 39,800. The city has experienced steady population growth since the early 2000s, though this has slowed in recent years.
Before the construction of the highway between the latter cities in the late 1950s, Fondi had been an important settlement on the Roman Via Appia, which was the main connection from Rome to much of southern Italy.
The territory of Fondi is partially included in the Regional Natural Park of Monti Aurunci.
The first historical reference to Fondi dates to 338 BC, at the time of the Latin War, when its inhabitants (together with those of the nearby Formia) gained minor Ancient Rome status ( civitas sine suffragio). After a failed attempt of revolt led by Vitruvius Vaccus (330 BC), Fondi remained a Roman prefecture; later (188 BC) it received full citizenship, with a government led by 3 .
The importance of Fondi lay in its position across the old Via Appia. Begun in 312 BC, it was for more than two millennia the main roadway from Rome to southern Italy. Today the historical centre and surrounding wall of Fondi still form a square, as in the Roman camp walls, whose decumanus was formed by the city tract of the Via Appia.
After the Gothic War and the Lombards conquest of Italy, Fondi remained a dominion of the Eastern Roman Empire. Later a part of the Papal States, in 846 it was burnt out by the Saracens coming from their fortress of Garigliano: they settled there until they were defeated in the Battle of Circeus of 877, and Fondi was passed to the Duchy of Gaeta.
In 1140 Fondi passed to the Dell'Aquila family, of Normans heritage, and then, in 1299, to the powerful Caetani barons (in the person of Loffredo Caetani, nephew of Pope Boniface VIII), who for two centuries made Fondi the centre of their power, and a centre of artistic development as well. Here in 1378 the powerful Count Onorato I Caetani summoned the Papal conclave in which the cardinals elected Clement VII against Urban VI (Western Schism).
The Caetani lost Fondi after Charles VIII of France's expedition to southern Italy, and it was assigned to the condottiero Prospero Colonna. Under the Colonna family the city met another period of artistic and cultural splendour, thanks of the court held by Giulia Gonzaga, who lived in Fondi between 1526 and 1534.
In 1534, Fondi was sacked by Barbarossa, who was seeking to kidnap the beautiful Giulia and bring her as a gift to his emperor Suleiman. However, she managed to escape, but many other inhabitants were enslaved in the Barbary slave trade.Peyronel Rambaldi, S. (2021). Giulia Gonzaga: A Gentlewoman in the Italian Reformation. Italien: Viella Libreria Editrice. p. 72-73 Another sack followed in 1594, starting the decline of the city, which had in the meantime passed to the Carafa of Stigliano. In 1720 Fondi was acquired by the di Sangro family.
In 1818 the declining city, surrounded by malaria-infested marshes malaria and , lost the bishopric seat existing there since the very early years of Christianity.
After the Armistice of 8 September 1943, the anti-Fascist novelist Alberto Moravia and his wife Elsa Morante took refuge in Fondi; the experience inspired Moravia's book La Ciociara ("The Woman from Ciociaria") (1958).
Fondi is the seat of an important market for agriculture and food products which distribute millions of tons of agricultural products every year.
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