Sulmo (Sulmona)

Roman Italy

Sulmo, modern Sulmona in the Abruzzo region of central Italy, was one of the main towns of the Paeligni, an Italic people of the central Apennines. It was the birthplace of the Roman poet Ovid, who calls it 'cold Sulmo' in his verse. In the Middle Ages it was a free commune within the Norman kingdom of Sicily, and its cathedral, built over a Roman temple, holds the remains of its patron saint, Pamphilus. On nearby Monte Morrone the hermit Pietro da Morrone, later Pope Celestine V, lived in a hermitage above the abbey he founded, and Pope Innocent VII was born into a noble family of the town.