Nemi
- This article is about the Italian town. For the Norwegian comic strip, see Nemi (comic strip).
Nemi, an old town and Comune of Italy, in the Province of Rome in central Lazio, 41°43′ N 12°43′ E, at 521 metres (1709 ft) above sea-level overlooking Lake Nemi. It is 6 km (4 mi) NW of Velletri and about 30 km (18 mi) Southeast of Rome. The official 2003 census figures put the population of the comune at 1,854.
The town's name derives from the Latin nemus Aricinum, or "grove of Ariccia": the latter is a small town a quarter of the way around the lake. In Antiquity the area had no town, but the grove was the site of one of the most famous of Roman cults and temples: that of Diana Nemorensis, a study of which served as the seed for Sir James Frazer's seminal work on the anthropology of religion, The Golden Bough.
Caligula's ships
Later on, possibly in connection with this cult (nothing substantial is known of the matter), Caligula built several very large and costly luxury barges for use on the lake. One was a small shrine to Artemis, designed to be towed, and the other was a pleasure boat with buildings on it. After Caligula's overthrow the boats were scuttled. Found in 1446, they were salvaged from 1929 to 1932 by Mussolini, by lowering the lake level to expose the ships. They were destroyed by fire in 1944 by defeated German forces retreating from Italy at the end of World War II. A Nemi Ship Museum is being completed in the lakeside plain at the foot of the hill of Nemi, with replicas of the ships and some few remaining original artifacts.Other sights
Nemi itself has a few late medieval to 18th‑century churches, but its main monument, dominating both town and landscape, is the Castello Ruspoli, the core of which dates to the 10th century.External site
- Official site of the comune of Nemi