Formia

FORMIA. - Small town on the Gulf of Gaeta, on the Appian Way. Having remained neutral during the Latin War, it first obtained citizenship without suffrage and then full citizenship in the 2nd century B.C. It was a holiday resort for wealthy Romans from the Republican era onward; it was in his villa there that Cicero was killed in 43 B.C. There is no precise information about the Christian evangelization of the city. In the Jeronymian Martyrology, under 2 June one reads: «in Formias in Campania Herasmi».

But its various passions are without historical value (BHL, 2578-85). Some also considered him bishop of F. A life of him was written by the Cassinese monk Giovanni Caetani, later Pope Gelasius II. As bishops of F. there are known Martinianus in 287, Adcedatus at the end of the 5th century, Andrew from 501 to 529, as is learned from his epitaph (CIL, X, 8218). St. Gregory the Great entrusted in 590 the administration of the church of Minturno to Bacauda, bishop of F. (Gregorii Reg., I, 8, p. 10). In 597 the same Pope charged Agnello, bishop of Terracina, with visiting the Church of F. after the death of Bacauda; in 598 Alvino is elected bishop. In 856 F. was destroyed by the Saracens and the episcopal see was transferred to Gaeta (v.). After the Saracens were expelled in 915, F. took the name of Mola. Charles of Anjou erected there in the 14th century a castle called Torre di Mola, which later passed as a fief to the Caetani family; higher up a village arose with another castle called Castelnuovo and later Castellone, sacked by René of Vaudémont in 1527. St. Gregory the Great recalls the Church «in qua corpus beati Herasmi martyris requiescit». Destroyed by the Saracens, it was rebuilt by the patrician Giovanni in the 9th century and transformed into a Benedictine monastery; first under the Caetani princes and then in 1058 subject to the monastery of Montecassino. Paschal II in 1122 took it under his protection. Later it was given in commendam to the Caetani family, in 1290 to the Congregation of Monte Oliveto. It was destroyed by the Turks in the 16th century.

Enrico Josi