Gaetani Aquila

The Gaetani, or Caetani, were a baronial family of the Papal States who traced their origin to the city of Gaeta. Two became pope: Gelasius II in 1118 and Boniface VIII in 1294. Boniface enriched his kinsmen with the fiefs of Sermoneta and Bassiano.

The Aquila branch took shape in 1297 when Giordano Roffredo Caetani married Giovanna dell'Aquila, heiress of the counts of Fondi, adding that county to the family's lands. Onorato I Caetani, count of Fondi from 1348, backed the Avignon antipopes during the Western Schism and was excommunicated; he died in 1400 after a failed assault on Rome.

Feuds with the Colonna troubled the Roman Campagna for generations. In 1500 Pope Alexander VI confiscated the Caetani fiefs for his daughter Lucrezia Borgia, though the family later recovered them.