Orvieto's history goes back to Etruscan times. Etruscans liked building their towns on hilltops, and none is as dramatic as Orvieto. Even the name is fun to say! Famous for wine, for a local pasta called umbrichelli, truffles, mushrooms, game, and ceramics, Orvieto is also home to one of the greatest fresco cycles of the Italian renaissance. Student of the great Piero della Francesca and major influencer to Michelangelo, Luca Signorelli is the artist who really put Orvieto on the map--as the place where "the antichrist came to town."
I wanted to be as close to the frescoes as possible, so we found an apartment that was a ten minute walk from the duomo.
Orvieto has countless underground caves. Built on soft rock, the people--since the time of the Etruscans-- have been tunneling underground. Our apartment also had such an underground cellar. It was an archaeological site, in fact!
And did I mention the views?
The historian Procopius described the war in which the Byzantine general, Belisarius besieged the Goths at Urbiventus (almost certainly Urbs Vetus, Orvieto) in 539: "The city occupies a lone hill that springs from low-lying ground, being on the top level smooth but precipitous at the base. Upon this hill men of old built the city and they neither placed walls around it nor constructed defences of any kind since the place seemed to them to be impregnable by nature. For there is only one approach to the city through the rocks (History of the Wars, VI:20).
Our apartment was situated on the original approach to the walled city.
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