Last Thoughts on Orvieto

Choosing a place to spend two weeks when you have not been in the area before can be a hit and miss proposition. It turns out that in the Tuscany/Umbria area, it would be hard to make a mistake. Still, Orvieto turned out to be an excellent choice. We were able to make easy day trips to several other towns in the area including Lucca, Assisi, Gubbio and the resort town of Lake Bolsena. And Orvieto itself has a lot to offer. We spent several days just exploring the town itself without ever having a bother with finding something new to see.

Our home in Orvieto

The farm

Notice the new interchange being built.
It will save about 15 minutes travel time.

Orvieto Scalo, the new part of town

We chose to stay on a farm in Orvieto instead of in the city to get a different look at Italian life. Our choice turned out to be an excellent one as our hosts, Alessandra and Pierluigi, made sure we had the staples for cooking and brought us fresh eggs and fruits from their produce. They also had some great advice on things to do in the area. We never would have traveled to Gubbio or Todi without their recommendations. They have several chickens along with olive trees and a small vineyard and a large garden area. We were too late in the season to get anything other than a dozen cherry tomatoes from the garden, but we did get to see a bit of winemaking and olive harvesting in our time there. The little farm, really a hobby farm producing just enough for household use, was less than a mile from town, but we still chose to drive each time as it was all uphill and unlit at night making it not very safe for walking even during the day. Never mind the fact that you don’t want to get to town already tired from walking a mile uphill.

A modern crucifix

One of many street cafes

Inside another cafe where we had some excellent lasagna

St. George and the dragon

Building decoration

Advertisement for a woodworking shop

On our last day we also tried to visit an amazing engineering feat. In 1527, Pope Clement VII left Rome for Orvieto when Rome as sacked by the imperial army. He commissioned the building of a secure well so Orvieto would have a secure water supply in the very real possibility the Pope would have to seek refuge again in Orvieto. The well was a huge undertaking as it ultimately descended over 50 meters into the rock. Architect Antonio de Sangallo designed the well large enough for two spiral staircases, one for ascending and one for descending, with 248 steps each large enough for donkeys to carry the water. While windows were cut into walls to provide some light, the staircase is still gloomy and dank. The cost to go down into the well is €5 and there really isn’t much to see so we passed on the opportunity. It’s too bad they don’t offer a quick view for a small charge or even allow one to go down just a few steps to experience this amazing feat of engineering. Today, when faced with a daunting task, townspeople will say, “It’s like digging St. Patrick’s Well.” The name of the well comes from a resemblance to St. Patrick’s Cavern in Ireland.

The outer wall of St. Patrick's Well

Entrance to the park overlooking Orvieto Scalo

Etruscan Orvieto

Of special interest in Orvieto is its connection to the Etruscan past of the region. The Etruscan empire encompassed most of what is today Tuscany and parts of neighboring regions including Umbria. We were able to see several different examples of the Etruscan past, but Orvieto has three of the most interesting.

First, they have an excellent museum. As often happens, this museum came from the collections of a local merchant who had an interest in the past. Beginning in the mid-1800s, his first collections were unorganized items he gathered because he liked them, including what became a large and significant coin collection. Later as archaeologists became more insistent on provenance, he began to focus on items from Orvieto, particularly from the two necropolises beneath the town’s cliffs.

That is his hand stroking his beard

The museum houses the coin collections and an incredible set of artifacts. Of particular interest are the vases imported from Greece. The Mediterranean has long been a trading area so the fact that there was trade between Greeks and Etruscans should be no surprise. Still, it is exciting to see so many of these vases in almost pristine condition. The commentary in English was a pleasant surprise and it helped us learn about the changes in the styles of the vases over time and what that meant about the world of the time.

The panels rotate allowing us to see both sides

Closely connected to the museum are the two necropolises that have been excavated below the cliffs of the city. By the time archaeologists took control of the area, some of the area had been looted. However, many of the tombs were still uncovered so there was much to learn from what was left. Interestingly, we still are not able to read most of the Etruscan language. What little we have figured out comes from places like these necropolises so most of the understood words are related to death and burial leaving a great deal undeciphered.  

We were able to walk through the entire area of one of the necropolises and peer into the graves themselves. It was a bit eerie to know that once this had really been a city of the dead. The map showed over 250 different tombs. On another day, I walked part of the path around the town the city has built beneath the cliffs giving me a bird’s eye view of the necropolis and the door to what was a religious site hewn out of the cliff side. Today it is another Catholic church. It is seldom used and not open for viewing.

Today it is a Catholic Church, But there was an Etruscan temple here first.

On our last full day in Orvieto, we took the underground tour. The layer underneath the city is honeycombed with caves many of which were first dug by the Etruscans who lived there. These have been added to since and today are used for a variety of storage facilities. They are perfect for long-term wine storage. The city no longer allows any new construction and is working to shore up the existing caves so they don’t collapse under the weight of the buildings above them.

The red dots are the caves
The black lines are buildings above
No caves under the Duomo.
They were probably destroyed when building the foundations for the heavy cathedral.

Olive presses

We visited two of the more than 1200 caves. In one of these we saw a well dug by the Etruscans those many years ago. At a depth of over  40 meters, it is an amazing engineering feat. Barely large enough for a person, it was dug with hand tools and required a person to descend each time water was extracted from the well. We could see the footholds carved into the side of the well to allow a person to climb up and down like a ladder.

Another cave had something even more interesting: pigeon holes. During the Middle Ages, residents carved nesting holes for pigeons in caves on the edge of the cliffs. Not being stupid, the pigeons would flock to these holes for nesting which made them easy picking for the residents who looked at pigeon meat as an essential part of the diet. While the pigeons no longer use these particular holes for nesting, pigeons can still be found on restaurant menus around town. 

Assisi

As in St. Francis of, Assisi is an Umbrian hill town that justifies the number of pilgrims and tourists it attracts each year. Francis grew up in Assisi, the son of a rich merchant. In 1202 he was captured in a battle against Perugia, Umbria’s capital city, and held prisoner for a year. He came home a changed man in search of something different than the life he had led. In 1206, after three years of fasting and praying, he had a vision, returned to town where he stripped naked and threw his clothes at his fathers. Turning his back on the comfortable material life, he declared his loyalty to God alone. 

Francis became a sort of cult figure preaching out of doors in the Italian language to huge crowds. In 1223, his order was blessed by the Pope. He died young at age 45 leaving a legacy of humanism, equality, and love of nature. Clare, the young Assisi woman who became one of his followers was joined by other women who became known as the Poor Clares. Both Clare and Francis were canonized almost immediately after their deaths and have churches in Assisi built in their honor.

Roman wash basins still work

Roman Theatre

Like most of the tourist cities in Italy, it is easy to walk from one end of Assisi to the other in less than an hour. Of course, actually seeing the sights can take days if not weeks in many of these towns and that is certainly true of Assisi. When we remember that the history of these towns and cities goes back to at least Roman and often Etruscan times hundreds of years before Jesus, it is easy to understand why a complete exploration of the towns will take more than a day or two. Nevertheless, we do what we can in the time that we have and always leave some reasons to return. Our walk through Assisi took about seven hours including a stop for lunch.

Rocca Maggiore

She is contemplating the fact that this aqueduct still provides fresh water after 2000 years.
Providing fresh water stops seems to be a requirement in Italian towns, probably a legacy of Roman times. 

We began at the upper end which of course meant that the last part of the day would be walking uphill to return to our car. Somehow that seems to be the easier route. Our first view from this end of town is of the two castles (Rocca Minore and Rocca Magiore) the provided protection for the city when Italy was a system of city-states. We walked around the walls of the Roman Amphitheater passing by the town laundry basin that still holds water although I doubt anyone does laundry there today.

This arch crosses a street to create another home in an area where space is limited.

Another ancient set of faucets still in use.

After wandering through the old city streets past a still-functioning section of the Roman aqueduct, we reached the Cathedral of San Rufino. Rufino, not Francis, is Assisi’s patron saint. Francis is one of the two patron saints of Italy. The other being St. Catherine of Siena. The main door of this exquisite Romanesque façade is guarded by two lions eating Christians, a reminder of those difficult days or early Christianity. Statues of Saints Francis and Clare by Giovanni Dupre created in 1888 share the spotlight with the baptismal font where they were baptized and glass panels in the floor showing the ancient Roman temple beneath.

Lion eating a Christian at the front door

St. Francis is everywhere

This hallway is just paintings of Pope John Paul II.
Each pose represents a different Christian attitude.

The baptismal font where Francis and Clare were baptized.

Roman ruins under the floor

More narrow city streets lead us to the Basilica of St. Clare. Along the way we see some of the homes that were built over the streets when everyone wanted to live inside the city walls for the protection they provided. The basilica, built after her death, was closed for lunch when we passed so we did not get to enter so we missed seeing the whitewash covering the original frescoes. The whitewash was applied during Baroque times to provide more light in the churches. We also missed seeing Clare’s crypt and the blood-stained stocking Francis wore when he received the stigmata of Jesus. Reasons to return one day to Assisi.

The arches to the left were added later.

We followed the shopping street from the Basilica to the city’s main square where we had lunch and visited the Temple of Minerva built by the Romans and now a Catholic church. On the side of the alter in the front of the church we could see the drains that the Romans built to drain the blood of the sacrifices held there.

Note the drains for the sacrificial blood.

In a market arcade off the main square, the arches above are decorated with fun paintings. Apparently, the artists were told to have fun. Note the playful monkeys and the musicians at the tables. Turkeys indicate that the art was created after 1492 because turkeys were one of the new finds from the new world along with tomatoes and potatoes.

One more small church awaited our visit before we reached the Basilica of St. Francis at the lower end of town. This is the Church of Santo Stefano built by simple stonemasons in the most basic design. The church is famous because the bells began miraculously ringing at the moment of St. Francis’s death.

A very simple confession booth

It would have been easy to spend a full day visiting just the Basilica of St. Francis. Actually, it is two churches, one built on top of the other. From town we arrive on the upper level with a huge plaza allowing a great view of the front of the basilica. The lawn adds to the ambiance which in earlier times would have been filled with pilgrim services and medieval souvenir shops. Even in those times, people wanted a souvenir to take home with them from their pilgrimage.

We began our visit in the lower basilica and a slow walk around the tomb of St. Francis below this level. He is surrounded by four of his closest friends and early followers and his rich Roman patron, Jacopa dei Settesoli who traveled from Rome to be at his side at his deathbed. Turned away because she was a woman, Francis allowed her to enter and be with him. Francis’s remains were hidden while the tomb was being built. Like the remains of St. Mark at the basilica in Venice, people then forgot their location. In this case, it took a month to find them.

The nave of the lower basilica is decorated with frescoes of the lives of Jesus and of Francis. Side chapels were added after the decorations were in place to provide mausoleums for rich families that patronized the Franciscan order. These new chapels cut into some of the frescoes, but it is important to honor those whose money makes things possible. The most visible part of the domed ceiling shows Francis on a heavenly throne in a golden robe reaping his heavenly reward for a life of simplicity for the glory of God.

The upper basilica is considered to be the first Italian Gothic church. The stained glass windows are among the oldest and most precious in Italy, but the highlight of this level is the 28 frescoes of scenes from the life of St. Francis. These include his first visitation from God, the pope having a dream and confirming the Franciscan order, Francis exorcising demons in Arezzo, his sermon to the birds and finally his death, funeral, and miracles associated with him even after his death.

A fitting farewell to Assisi.

Peace

Finished with our quickie tour of Assisi and the basilica, we girded ourselves for the mile long walk back up to the parking lot and our drive home. Fittingly, as we drove past  Lago di Corbara just outside of Orvieto, we were treated to a beautiful sunset over the lake waters.