Bevagna is an Italian town of 4 921 inhabitants in the province of Perugia, once known for the precious canvases that were produced there, so much so as to be called "bevagne". It is included among the most beautiful villages in Italy and among the orange flags.
Traces of human settlements appear since the Iron Age and important archaeological finds confirm the presence of the Umbrians in the Bevanate area.
The first historical information about Bevagna
coincides with the Roman conquest of Umbria with the famous Battle
of the Sentino in 295 BC. Bevagna, in fact, was known as the Umbrian
itinerary center and for its pastoralism and cattle breeding.
It became a Roman municipality in 90 BC. with the name of
Mevania, it was ascribed to the Aemilia tribe, in the VI Regio. It
became an important agricultural and strategic center, thanks to its
favorable position at the center of the great road network set by
the Romans with the Via Flaminia (220 BC), and to its river port on
the Topino (whose waters, at the time navigable, flow in the
Chiascio river and then in the Tiber). This prosperity will last
until the third century AD, when the stretch of the Flaminia passing
through Terni and Spoleto acquires greater importance. In this
period it underwent a notable building development, in fact Mevania
was equipped with a wall, a spa and an amphitheater of which the
vestiges still remain. Perhaps home of Properzio [4]; in 308 BC the
Latin writer Livio recalls the Battle of Mevania on this date, even
if the episode is doubtful for historians. It is certain that after
295 Mevania allied itself with Rome with other Umbrian cities.
With the advent of Christianity there are numerous martyrs,
including St. Vincent, the first bishop and patron of the country.
The diocese of Bevagna was founded there, historically attested in
the Lateran council of 487.
With the fall of the Roman Empire Bevagna was devastated by the
barbarian invasions of the Lombards in the sixth century, decaying
and also losing the bishopric in the ninth century. In 774, it
became a Longobard possession within the Duchy of Spoleto, without
having a special importance there (the term Gaite to indicate the
neighborhoods derives from this period). Later it became part of the
State orbit of the Church, but in reality it continues to depend,
like the entire duchy, on the Frankish kings and then on the
emperors of the Holy Roman Empire.
After the Frankish
conquest, Bevagna has been a free municipality ruled by Consuls
since 1187, and is disputed between the alternate dominations of
Spoleto, Foligno, the Germanic Empire, Perugia and the Papal State.
Above all he lives the disputes between the Church and the Empire,
while remaining substantially faithful to the former until the
advent of the Unification of Italy.
Conquered and set on fire
in 1152 by Frederick Barbarossa and again in 1249 by Count d'Aquino,
captain of Emperor Frederick II as a Guelph army, it was resurrected
in the second half of the 13th century so that in 1249 the citizens
obtained from Pope Innocent IV the authorization to freely elect
their own podestà . During the 13th century, the mendicant orders,
Franciscans, Dominicans and Augustinians arrived in the city and
built their churches there.
In 1371, after having passed several times from imperial to papal dominion and vice versa, Bevagna was donated by Pope Gregory XI to Trincia Trinci, apostolic vicar, starting the domination of the Trinci di Foligno lordship which will last until 1439, when the village will be returned to the direct domain of the Holy See. Even if it was strongly disputed with Perugia. It was devastated in 1375 by Corrado II Trinci, lord of Foligno; under the hegemony of Perugia, it tried to rebel in October 1381, until in 1439 it passed definitively to the Church. In 1493 Pope Alexander VI granted it in administration to the papal governors of Spoleto. The disputes between the Bevanti and the city of Spoleto convinced Pope Julius II in 1503 to place it under the jurisdiction of the pontifical governors of Perugia, who cardinals began to contend for city supremacy. In 1530 Pope Clement VII decided to place Bevagna under the dynastic control of the Baglioni. However, the bad government and the ferocity of the Baglioni made the popes change their minds, who placed it under the Perugian governors, and then again under the Baglioni, until in 1567 Pope Pius V definitively resolved the question by placing Bevagna under the direct control of the Holy See, to which it remained, except for the parenthesis of the Napoleonic conquest, until the advent of the Kingdom of Italy in 1860.
An important role for the history of the city
and its territory is represented, as for the other municipalities of
the Umbrian Valley, by the efforts and struggles for the reclamation
of the marshy areas and for the regulation of the numerous
waterways. Started in 1456, the reclamation of the Bevanate plain
achieves concrete results in the second half of the 1500s, bringing
advantages to the Bevanate agricultural economy, centered above all
on the cultivation and processing of hemp.
It is with the
1700s and, especially during the 1800s, that the hydraulic system of
this area starts to get its definitive structure.
Leo XII in
1825 returned the title of city to it.