Location: Umbria
Eat: Apollinare (+39 074 322 3256)
Constructed: 12th century
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Spoleto (Spuléti in Spoleto dialect) is an Italian
town of 36 487 inhabitants in the province of Perugia in Umbria.
Seat of the archdiocese of Spoleto-Norcia, of the health
district and of the court, by virtue of its geographical position it
has strong historical and cultural ties with the Valnerina and the
province of Terni. The municipality is the lead institution of the
social zone n° 9 of Umbria.
Religious architecture
San Giuliano Abbey, a 12th century abbey.
St. Paul's Abbey "inter vineas", Romanesque abbey from the 6th century.
Basilica of San Gregorio Maggiore, 11th century church.
Cathedral of
Santa Maria Assunta, also known as the cathedral of Spoleto, an 11th
century cathedral with frescoes by Pinturicchio and Filippo Lippi.
Church of Sant'Ansano, a 12th-century neoclassical church built on a
Roman temple dedicated to Jupiter.
Church of San Domenico, a
12th-14th century church.
Church of Sant'Eufemia, a 12th century
Romanesque church built in the area of an insula.
Church of San
Filippo Neri, a 17th century church.
Church of Santa Maria della
Concezione, also known as Santa Maria della Piaggia.
Church of San
Pietro, or church of San Pietro extra moenia, Romanesque church of the
XII century.
Church of San Rocco.
Church of San Ponziano,
Romanesque-neoclassical church of the XII century.
Church of San
Sabino, Romanesque church of the 11th-12th century.
Church of San
Salvatore, an early Christian basilica from the 4th-5th century with
Lombard reconstructions from the 8th century.
Monumental cemetery of
Spoleto, monumental cemetery of the 19th century.
Monumental complex
of Sant'Agata, a complex of buildings made up of the monastery of the
same name, the church of Sant'Agata and the Roman theatre.
Monumental
complex of San Nicolò.
Monumental complex of San Matteo degli
infermi.
Capuchin convent.
Sanctuary of San Francesco, sanctuary
of Monteluco.
Sanctuary of the Madonna of Loreto.
Civil
architectures
The Albornoziana fortress stands at the top of the
Sant'Elia hill from where it dominates the Umbrian valley. It was built
by Cardinal Egidio Albornoz. It has two internal courtyards and six
towers, including the one commonly called "della spiritata", and the
"camera pinta", frescoed with fifteenth-century paintings.
The
Sanguinario bridge, from Roman times, currently below road level,
rediscovered only in the 19th century. It is located exactly in
correspondence with the current road center of Piazza della Vittoria and
can be visited by going down a flight of stairs that starts directly
from the square. 24 m long and 9 m high, it appears to be in an
excellent state of conservation. It consists of squared travertine
blocks that make up three arches, one of which is still underground. The
bridge allowed the Via Flaminia to cross the Tessino torrent, which
today flows a few tens of meters further to the north-east; when this
gradually changed location, the bridge remained simply a stretch of the
road and over time was filled up. The name probably derives from the
ancient and nearby Porta Sandalapius, but popular tradition associates
it with the proximity of the Roman amphitheater, where many martyrs are
believed to have occurred.
The Arch of Drusus, Roman, built along the
urban layout of the Via Flaminia, which led to the forum (current site
of Piazza del Mercato), erected in 23 AD. in honor of Drusus the minor.
Palazzo Spada, seat of the Textile and Costume Museum.
The Racani
Arroni palace, with its sixteenth-century monochromatic graffiti.
Palazzo Mauri, seat of the municipal library.
The bridge of the
Towers, 230 m long, symbol of the city: it was the most spectacular part
of the Cortaccione aqueduct of Roman origins. It is considered a
Roman-Lombard construction according to some, late-medieval according to
others, unique in its height of 82 m. The monument is affected by a
delicate monitoring of the stress state of the walls. It is considered
an anomaly for the period of its construction: in fact, rarely in the
same period were civil works of such grandeur built. The work is
celebrated by Goethe in his Italienische Reise. Over time, the place has
also become sadly famous for the occurrence of some suicide episodes. At
the extreme point towards Monteluco is the Fortilizio dei Mulini, a
turreted building which for centuries has carried out surveillance
functions on the bridge.
Umbrians and Roman Colony
Spoleto has been
inhabited since prehistoric times. The first evidence of settlements
date back at least to the final Bronze Age (12th-11th century BC): the
most interesting finds have come to light at the top and on the slopes
of the Sant'Elia hill, where the Rocca Albornoziana will rise many
centuries later .
During the Iron Age Spoleto was one of the
major Umbrian centres, in a dominant position over the Umbrian valley.
Numerous inhumation burials remain with rich equipment dating back to
the 8th-6th century BC. found above all in the necropolis of Piazza
d'Armi. Exceptional are the findings of 4 sceptres, two of which
depicting animals and divinities, in the princely tomb known as "del
re", as well as numerous ceramic pottery decorated with zoomorphic clay
elements (horses, birds and fantastic animals) and two rattles
ceremonial plates in bronze and iron. Clear elements of aristocratic and
royal power can already be seen by birthright, as demonstrated by the
neonatal tombs of the "little princes" which contain weapons
(armour-discs, spears, daggers) and symbols of social status (bronze
kantharos).
There are also remains of the polygonal walls of
the 5th-4th century BC, called cyclopean walls, made up of huge
limestone boulders in a polygonal shape.
An important stone
document that has survived to this day is the Lex spoletina, preserved
in the National Archaeological Museum of Spoleto.
It became a
Roman colony in 241 BC. with the name of Spoletium and always remained
faithful to Rome, especially during the Punic wars, not only by
rejecting Hannibal after his victory at Trasimeno (217 BC), but above
all in the critical period following that long conflict.
In 43
BC. Octavian stopped there, before the battle of Modena, officiating a
ritual sacrifice at one of the city's temples.
Duchy of Spoleto
At the beginning of the 5th century the Roman poet Giulio Naucellio
resided in Spoleto.
Embellished by Theodoric, who between 507 and
511 put his hand in the restoration of the city and in the reclamation
of the largely marshy valley, and by Belisario (536), Spoleto was
conquered by Totila (545) and restored by Narses who, after the 553,
undertook the restoration of the walls.
Under the Lombards,
Spoleto was the capital of the duchy of the same name, projecting the
political influence of the city over a vast territory of
central-southern Italy, up to the duchy of Benevento.
When the
Lombards fell, the duchy passed to the Franks. When the Carolingian
empire was dismembered, the dukes of Spoleto, Guido II and his son
Lambert II, set out to conquer the imperial crown (889).
papal
state
In 1155 Spoleto, "a very well-fortified city defended by a
hundred towers" was, according to tradition, destroyed by Federico
Barbarossa. Later, in 1185 Federico Barbarossa, as a sign of
reconciliation, gave the city of Spoleto the Most Holy Icon, an image of
the Madonna currently exhibited in the Cathedral of Spoleto.
Then
disputed between the Empire and the Church, it was aggregated to this by
Pope Innocent III in 1198 and, definitively, in 1247. The city was
severely hit by the earthquake of 1298. Marred by conflicts between
Guelphs and Ghibellines, it was reconciled by Cardinal Egidio Albornoz
(he, in 1359, began the construction works of the Rocca as the seat of
the governors of the city); it was secured to the Church and made an
important center of the Papal State, which sent it authoritative
governors, including Lucrezia Borgia (1499).
From the Renaissance
onwards, Spoleto progressively transformed from a mainly strategic
center to a cultural center, with the foundation of the Accademia degli
ottusi (also known as the Accademia Spoletina). Periods of splendor and
decline followed. Popes Urban VIII and Pius IX had been respectively
bishop and archbishop of Spoleto.
During the French occupation in
the Napoleonic period, Spoleto was the capital first of the department
of Clitunno and then of that of Trasimeno. From 1816 to 1860 it was the
capital of the apostolic delegation of Spoleto, an administrative
subdivision of the State of the Church, established by Pope Pius VII in
the territory of Umbria and Sabina. In its definitive conformation it
bordered to the north with the delegations of Perugia and Camerino, to
the east with the delegation of Ascoli, to the south with the delegation
of Rieti and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and to the west with the
delegation of Viterbo.
On 17 September 1860, the troops of the Piedmontese
general Filippo Brignone entered Spoleto, taking the city away from the
Papal State. Subsequently, with the plebiscite of 4 November 1860, which
involved Marche and Umbria, Spoleto was annexed to the Kingdom of Italy.
After the unification, the new Kingdom of Italy privileged Perugia
as the capital of a vast province, which also incorporated the Spoleto
area and extended in part of today's province of Rieti, in the Tiber
valley up to the gates of Rome, thus relegating Spoleto to a secondary
role, even if for many years the city continued to remain the seat of
various institutions such as the military district.
Finally, with
the subsequent establishment of the province of Rieti and the promotion
of Terni to provincial capital, in 1927, Spoleto ended up definitively
losing its ancient role as the political-administrative center of
southern Umbria.
Spoleto is located at the southern end of the Umbrian
Valley, a vast alluvial plain, generated in prehistoric times by the
presence of a vast lake, the lacus Umber, definitively dried up in the
Middle Ages, after its swamping, with reclamation works.
The city
developed on the Sant'Elia hill, a low hilly promontory at the foot of
Monteluco, near the Clitunno river, and further down to the banks of the
Tessino stream; to the east it is surrounded by the mountains that
delimit the Valnerina, of which three of its hamlets, Le Cese, Belvedere
and Ancaiano, are part of it.
To the south it borders the
promontory of Valserra, an area of Umbria located almost entirely in the
municipality of Terni, with the exception of a small offshoot which
falls within the municipal territory of Spoleto, more precisely in the
hamlets of Fogliano, Castagnacupa and Messenano.
The city ranks
28th among Italian municipalities by extension.
The climate of the city of Spoleto is essentially
sub-continental with high annual and daily temperature ranges,
especially in the summer season. There is a climatic variation between
the city centre, which is located at an altitude between 320 and 430 m
a.s.l. and is largely surrounded by mountains, and the periphery that
develops on the Spoleto valley at an altitude of less than 300m, in a
flat and hilly context. In winter the average minimum temperatures are
around zero, but in case of clear skies, during the night they can drop
to a few degrees below zero and frosts are quite frequent. In the months
of December, January and February there are on average 13/15 days of
frost (minimum temperatures lower than or equal to 0 °C) per month,
while the days of ice (maximum temperature lower than or equal to 0 °C)
are rather rare.
Snowfalls are a phenomenon that is occurring
more and more rarely, although the historic center sees snow fall
several times every year, but with accumulations that tend not to be
particularly significant due to the presence of the surrounding
mountains. In the first part of spring, which is the rainiest season of
the year, there are often late frosts and snowfalls on the mountains. In
summer the city has markedly continental characteristics with
temperature ranges that in anticyclonic conditions touch, and sometimes
reach, 20 °C. For this reason, if temperatures of 30 °C and above can be
reached during the day, typically the minimum values are always below 20
°C. Consider, for example, that on 1 July 2012, which in Spoleto was the
hottest day of the entire torrid summer of 2012, the minimum and maximum
temperatures were respectively 19.0 and 39.1 °C. As a result of
subtropical heat waves, Spoleto can record maximum temperatures of over
33 °C even for several consecutive days.
Autumn, in the first
phase, has mild and very rainy characteristics (end of September and the
month of October), while it tends to be more similar to winter in the
month of November. Autumn mists are quite frequent in the peripheral
area of the city, and on some days they can persist for the whole day.
Fog phenomena are much less frequent in the city centre, and relate only
to the early hours of the morning.