Orvieto

 

Orvieto, from the Latin urbs vetus ("old city"), is an Italian town of 20 039 inhabitants in the province of Terni in Umbria. The municipality of Orvieto is located in the south-western sector of Umbria, in the province of Terni, about 45 km from Viterbo, bordering to the east with the province of Perugia and to the south with the province of Viterbo in Lazio.

 

Territory

Orvieto rises on a tuff cliff (ignimbrite from Orvieto - Bagnoregio), between 280 (Piazza Cahen) and 325 (S. Francesco) m asl, overlooking the valley of the Paglia river, a right tributary of the Tiber and just below the the city receives from the left the Chiani, the Roman Chiana coming from the Val di Chiana. This huge tuffaceous mesa, which rises from twenty to fifty meters above the ground level, is due to the collapse of ground sourge (pyroclastic currents, clouds and burning avalanches) from the Quaternary activity of the volcanoes of the Volsinio system, largest volcanic lake in Europe, that of Bolsena.

With 281 km² of surface, it is one of the fifty largest municipalities in Italy. The highest point is Mount Peglia (837 m a.s.l.), on the border with the municipality of San Venanzo. The territory of Orvieto was part of the mountain community of Monte Peglia and Selva di Meana and part of it lies in the Tiber river park.

 

History

Prehistory

In the municipal area there are archaeological remains that attest to the presence of human groups since the Paleolithic. As for the plateau on which the ancient nucleus of the city stands, the finds, for the most part fragments collected at the foot of the ridge (excavations in the locality of Cannicella and systematic explorations) and coming from the settlement systems and activities that took place on the plateau itself, a small part dates back to the Bronze Age and mostly to the Early Iron Age.

For the most ancient phases, a fragment of a vase with decoration in the "Apennine" style (XV-XIV century BC) and others from the final Bronze Age (XII-X century BC) should be mentioned, but it remains uncertain whether the groups allocated had identified the strategic potential of the Orvieto mesa already in times when they were unable to occupy and control it in its entirety.

It is at the end of the 10th century BC. that, concomitantly with the birth of the other large Etruscan urban centers, also on the vast and suitable cliff of Orvieto there is a community that structures a vast and active unitary settlement; the demographic consistency of the resident community immediately had to make it possible to defend the perimeter, of about 4 km and already in itself equipped with natural defenses, but it is certain that the demographic increase, also due to the new organizational situation, meant that already in the course of the early Iron Age on the plateau of Orvieto (about 85 hectares) a proto-urban community of several thousand individuals was established, also here, as in all the great cities of Etruria, characterized by the archaeological aspect called Villanovan.

Etruscan period
The archaeological evidence of the Etruscan era, provided by excavation campaigns and studies conducted up to recent years, offer a fairly reliable, although still incomplete, picture of the ancient city, identified after many uncertainties and controversies among archaeologists, in the city of of the twelve Etruscan city-states. Called by the Romans "Volsinii", it stood near a famous Etruscan sanctuary, Fanum Voltumnae, visited every year by the inhabitants of Etruria who came to celebrate religious rites, games and events. The city had, from the eighth to the sixth century BC, a notable economic development, which mainly benefited wealthy families in a strongly oligarchic regime, and a demographic increase which, in the composition of the population, shows the opening to a multiethnic city; all this is reflected in the remains of the city on the cliff and mainly in the nearby necropolis. The city reached its maximum splendor between the sixth and fourth centuries BC, becoming a thriving commercial and artistic center, with a military supremacy guaranteed by its strategic position that gave it the appearance of a natural fortress.

Roman period
Between the end of the 4th and the beginning of the 3rd century BC. the social order that had allowed the growth of the city cracked. The previously excluded classes conquered the government of public affairs and the dissension between the classes became violent, until the nobles asked the Romans for help. These, in 264 BC, took the opportunity to send the army to Volsinii and, instead of subduing it, they destroyed it and deported the inhabitants who had escaped the slaughter on the shores of the nearby lake of Bolsena, where Volsinii Novi (Bolsena) was built. We do not know the reason for this fury towards the city by the Romans who, according to literary news, transported to Rome over two thousand statues looted from Orvieto sanctuaries, and evoked in the city the god Vertumnus, the main divinity of the Etruscans. The translation of the physical city of ancient Orvieto from one site to another will be repeated in the opposite direction, still caused by other invasions. The early medieval citadel of Ourbibentos was then re-founded on the Orvieto cliff which, in the space of a few centuries, will become a new city with the name of Urbs Vetus (old city).

 

Early medieval period

After the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, Orvieto became the domain of the Goths until 553 when, after a bloody battle and a siege, it was conquered by the Byzantines of Belisario. Subsequently, after the establishment of the Duchy of Spoleto, he became Lombard. Shortly before the year 1000, the city, located on the border line of Byzantine Italy, of which it constituted an important strategic node, flourished again, expanding its urban fabric with the construction of fortifications, palaces, towers and churches.

Free Municipality
Orvieto, the residential seat of the pontifical courts on repeated occasions, is the City of Corpus Domini: from here, on 11 August 1264, Pope Urban IV instituted the universal Christian solemnity of Corpus et Sanguis Domini, celebrated throughout the Catholic world. The office of the mass was drawn up by St. Thomas Aquinas, a professor in the Studium of Orvieto. It became a municipality, but even if it was not officially part of the patrimony of San Pietro, it was under his control; to be recognized as a municipal government it needed a declaration of consent from Pope Adrian IV in 1157.

In the twelfth century Orvieto, strong with a fierce army, began to expand its borders which, after victorious battles against Siena, Viterbo, Perugia and Todi, saw it dominate over a vast territory that went from the Val di Chiana to the lands of Orbetello and of Talamone on the Tyrrhenian Sea. In its expansion, Orvieto had made a powerful ally: Florence (Siena's rival) which had supported its rise. The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were the period of maximum splendor for Orvieto which, with a population of about thirty thousand inhabitants (even higher than that of Rome), became an undisputed military power, and saw the birth of splendid palaces and monuments in its urban territory.

The internal struggles
But paradoxically this era also saw the birth of furious internal struggles in the city. Two patrician families, the Guelph Monaldeschi and the Ghibelline Filippeschi, tortured the city with bloody battles which, together with the subsequent religious fights between the Malcorini, pro-imperial, and the Muffatti, papal, weakened the municipal power favoring, in 1354, the conquest by of Cardinal Egidio Albornoz. In this lapse of time, other noteworthy events were recorded in Orvieto: Pope Innocent III, from the pulpits of the church of Sant'Andrea, had proclaimed the Fourth Crusade; in 1281, in the same church, in the presence of Charles I of Anjou, Pope Martin IV was elevated to the papacy and, in 1297, in the church of San Francesco, the canonization of Louis IX of France, present Pope Boniface VIII, took place.

After Cardinal Albornoz, Orvieto was subjected to various lordships: Rinaldo Orsini, Biordo Michelotti, Giovanni Tomacello and Braccio Fortebraccio to return then, in 1450, definitively to be part of the State of the Church, becoming one of the most important provinces and constituting the alternative in Rome for many popes, bishops and cardinals who came to stay there. The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were periods of tranquility for the city. Under the Napoleonic Empire it rose to a canton inserted in the arrondissement of Todi passing a short decline and recovering later, in 1831, under the Church, it was elevated to apostolic delegation.

 

In the Kingdom of Italy

During the Italian Risorgimento, Orvieto remained part of the Papal State until the Piedmontese campaign in central Italy in September 1860; even before the arrival of the regular Piedmontese troops committed to defeating the papal army, the volunteers of the so-called "hunters of the Tiber", led by Luigi Masi, on 12 September 1860 freed Orvieto and forced the weak papal garrison of the city to surrender. After the end of hostilities, the final fate of Orvieto initially remained in doubt; there was talk of the restoration of the papal dominion and the arrival of the French troops of the Roman occupation corps who had already arrived in Viterbo to safeguard the temporal power of the Church in Lazio. On October 15, 1860 Cavour himself intervened directly with the French foreign minister Édouard Thouvenel and with Prince Jerome Napoleon, underlining how the emperor Napoleon III himself had previously ensured that Orvieto would no longer be part of the dominion of the Church. On 18 October 1860, the French authorities ensured that the city would not be occupied and would remain included in the territory of Umbria to be submitted to a plebiscite for admission to the new Kingdom of Italy.

 

On 4-5 November 1860 the plebiscite in Umbria decreed with an overwhelming majority the annexation of the region, including the city of Orvieto, to the new unified Italian state.

In the second world war
During the Second World War the city and the territory of Orvieto assumed considerable strategic importance; during the Achse operation the German troops of the 3. Panzergrenadier-Division, deployed in a large area between Umbria, northern Lazio and southern Tuscany, acted quickly and occupied the city, together with Viterbo from the first hours after 8 September , Montefiascone and Orte, before advancing towards Rome. During the months of the occupation, the Germans used the airfields in the area.

In the phase of the Italian campaign following the liberation of Rome, on 5 June 1944, Field Marshal Albert Kesselring had his forces retreated to the Albert line which connected the area of ​​Lake Trasimeno with Orvieto. The German troops of the 29th Panzergrenadier-Division tenaciously defended the access roads to the city until 14 June when they evacuated Orvieto and retreated towards Siena. The city was liberated by British units of the 78th Infantry Division while South African mechanized forces of the 6th Armored Division were also employed in the area.

 

Symbols

According to a decree of 1928, the coat of arms of the Municipality of Orvieto consists of a shield divided into four surmounted by a crown. Four symbols are represented in the four divisions: the Cross, the Eagle, the Lion and the Goose.

The red cross on a white field symbolizes the loyalty of the Municipality to the Guelph faction and was recognized to the Municipality of Orvieto by Pope Adrian IV in 1157.

The black eagle with a golden crown on a red background refers to the domination of the Romans. The golden lambello with five pendants was placed around the eagle's neck when Charles of Anjou granted Orvieto the title of "city", after being crowned king of the Kingdom of Sicily by Pope Clement IV in the cathedral of Orvieto. The lambello recalls the red one of the house of Anjou.

The lion on a red background holds a silver sword in the right paw and the keys of St. Peter in the left. It recalls the Florentine lion, in memory of the historic alliance between the two cities. The keys, with the motto fortis et fidelis, are a concession of Pope Adrian IV in recognition of Orvieto's long loyalty to the papacy.

The goose, with one leg raised above a stone, refers to the legendary geese of the Capitol which, with their cackle, saved Rome from the attack of enemies.