Tempio di Giove Anxur

The Jupiter Anxur's Temple is a Roman temple, which stands on an imposing building of the first century BC, on the Sant'Angelo Mount, in Terracina. Sant'Angelo Mount (also known as Jupiter's Mount by Romans) is the latest offshoot of the Ausoni Mountains, which slopes to the south rose the center of Tarracina, then Anxur, and finally Roman (V century BC). To 312 BC date back the first polygonal terraces, for the erection of a first sanctuary. At the Silla Age (I century BC) date from a monumental construction, with a wall and a military camp for controlling the passage of the Via Appia, and the new big Temple in uncertain work, with back porch. After Roman times, the Sanctuary was destroyed and burned. Its remains were known in Medieval times as "Theodoric Palace". The area was abandoned in the sixteenth century, with the depopulation of the city of Terracina. The first excavations date back to 1894, led by the local scholar Pio Capponi, followed by other excavations of Luigi Borsari in 1896. Initial investigations revealed that the deity of the temple was Jupiter Anxur ("Jupiter the Child"), protector of the city. The oldest Sanctuary, was to be instead dedicated to the worship of the goddess Feronia. The Temple come down to us includes an upper terrace, with primarily for military use, and a lower terrace, which houses the oracular shrine. At the eastern end it settled the church of the Convent of St. Michele Arcangel, of which there are traces of ninth century frescoes.