Under the name of Comino Valley is designated in popular usage as a small region in northern Campania, essentially corresponding to the upper valley of the Melfa, It is almost entirely surrounded by a cloister of limestone mountains (Apennines and Sub-Apennines), except to the south-west, where a depression (350-450 m) connects this kind of basin with the territory of Sora; the river leaves the basin, cutting through the limestone of Mount Cairo in a narrow gorge, about 12 km long, and then flows into the plain at Roccasecca. The lower parts of the basin (about 550 m), which was probably once occupied by a lake basin, are cultivated, with vineyards and olive groves predominating. Crops reach up to around 900-1000 m.; higher up, the soil is bare, because the forest was cleared. Over an area of 244 square kilometres, the Comino Valley has about 30,000 inhabitants, more than 40% of whom are scattered in farmhouses swarming all over the lower region, the rest gathered in centres, of which the largest are, in order of height: Casalvieri (380 m.), Atina (490 m.), Vicalvi (590 m.), Alvito (720), Picinisco (725 m.), S. Donato (728 m.), Settefrati (784 m.).
The name Comino dates back to the classical era; here was in fact, in an unspecified location, a Cominium, taken and destroyed, in 293 B.C., during the 3rd Samnite War, by the Romans commanded by the consul Corvilius (Liv., X, 39; Dionys. Halic., XVII, 4, 3), while his colleague besieged Aquilonia, which suggests that the two cities were not far apart. Certainly different from the Cominium Ceritum mentioned by Livy (XXV, 14) near Benevento, and the Comini, mentioned by Pliny (Nat. Hist., III, 108) as a people of the Equicolians that had already disappeared in its time. In the Middle Ages, from at least the 11th century onwards, the name Comino changed (as it often did in other cases) to indicate a territory, with gradually larger borders. The name is found, from the 15th century onwards, in literature (Flavio Biondo, Leandro Alberti, etc.) and still survives in use, although it has no official value, except in the name of the municipality of San Donato Val di Comino.
Bibl.: R. Almagià, The Comino Valley, in Boll. Soc. geog. it., 1911.
Source: Treccani Italian Encyclopaedia