Rome in the Footsteps of an XVIIIth Century Traveller

Everyday a train leaves Stazione Termini at about 8:00 am. First stop: Orte; second stop: Narni; third stop: Terni; fourth stop: Spoleto; fifth stop: Trevi; sixth stop: Foligno; seventh stop: Spello; eighth stop: Assisi; last stop: ...Perugia!

The train leaves Assisi and heads north-west; in a few minutes it crosses the River Tiber and soon after it reaches its final destination: Perugia.

The highest part of Perugia seen from Borgo S. Pietro with the Cathedral in the left upper corner and S. Severo in the right upper corner

It is a long ascent from the station to the grey city walls, which stand crowned with towers and churches at the top of a hill. (..) Each turn of the way is beautiful, and most so on a market day, when it is almost blocked up with the herds of goats and oxen and flocks of sheep, driven to the market and attended by their gaily dressed herdsmen who sing wild stornelli in deep Umbrian voices as they go.
Augustus J. C. Hare - Cities of Northern and Central Italy - 1878
Perugia reaches 494 m of altitude near S. Severo whereas the neighbourhood of Borgo S. Pietro, outside the ancient Etruscan walls, stands some 50 meters lower.

(left and centre) Arco della Mandorla (almond, because of its shape) at the entrance of the road from Orvieto; (right) Porta Trasimena (leading to Lake Trasimeno)

Perugia is one of the very few Etruscan cities that retains anything like its ancient importance. One of the "heads of Etruria" of old, it is still among the first cities of Central Italy. Its glory has not utterly departed, nor has it even greatly waned, for it is yet a large and wealthy city, with fifteen thousand inhabitants.
George Dennis - The Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria - 1848
Due to its location near the River Tiber valley and at one end of the Umbrian Valley, Perugia was inhabited from prehistoric times. Its position on a hill was due not only to defensive needs, but also to health reasons because the plain had plenty of marshes. Life improved when the Etruscans achieved control over the territories to the west of the Tiber, including Perugia. They dug a canal which facilitated the flow of the Umbrian Valley streams into the river.
The Etruscans were the most advanced people of pre-Roman Italy and they developed construction techniques based on the use of arches and vaults. Some of the gates of Etruscan Perugia were narrowed during the Middle Ages and their round arches were turned into pointed ones.

Arco Etrusco or d'Augusto, illustration from George Dennis - The Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria - 1878 ed.

The best preserved and the grandest of all the ancient gates of Perugia is the Arco d'Augusto, so called from the inscription, AVGVSTA PERVSIA, over the arch. It is formed of regular masonry of travertine, uncemented, in courses eighteen inches high; some of the blocks being three or four feet in length. The masonry of the arch hardly corresponds with that below it, and is probably of subsequent date and Roman, as the inscription seems to testify, though the letters are not necessarily coeval with the structure. The arch is skew, or oblique; and the gate is double. Above the arch is a frieze of six Ionic colonnettes, fluted, alternating with shields; and from this springs another arch, now blocked up. (..) All the work above the lower arch is evidently of later date than the original construction of the gateway. The entire height of the structure, as it now stands, cannot be less than sixty or seventy feet. (..) This gate still forms one of the entrances to the city, though there is a populous suburb without the walls. Its appearance is most imposing. The lofty towers, like ponderous obelisks, truncated - the tall archway recessed between them - the frieze of shields and colonnettes above it - the second arch soaring over all, a gallery, it may be, whence to annoy the foe - the venerable masonry overgrown with moss, or dark with the breath of ages - form a whole which carries the mind most forcibly into the past. Dennis

(left) Arco Etrusco or d'Augusto; (right) detail of its decoration

The best preserved Etruscan gate is located on the northern side of the town; it was protected by two imposing towers. The ridge of a nearby hill provided potential enemies with a good attacking position, so the Etruscans strengthened that part of the walls.
In 41 BC Lucius Antonius, the younger brother of Mark Antony, tried to stir up a revolt against Octavian: he was forced to retire to Perugia with the senators who supported him: Octavian laid siege to the well protected town and it took him seven months to seize it: Perugia was set on fire, the senators were put to death, but Lucius Antonius's life was spared: the time for open war between Octavian and Antony was yet to come. A few years later Octavian, by now Augustus, promoted the reconstruction of Perugia and gave it his honorific title which can still be read on the gate: Augusta Perusia.
The National Archaeological Museum of Umbria retains evidence of the Etruscan and Roman past of Perugia and the Tomb of the Volumni outside the town is one of the very few intact Etruscan tombs.

Etruscan gates: (left) Arco dei Gigli (it has no longer the coat of arms of Pope Paul III); (right) Porta Marzia

Another ancient gate very like that of Augustus is, or rather was, the Arco Marziale or Porta Marzia; for what is now to be seen is the mere skeleton of the gate, which was taken down to make room for the modern citadel. But to preserve so curious a relic of the olden time from utter destruction, Sangallo the architect built the blocks composing the façade into a bastion of the fortress, where, imprisoned in the brick-work, they remain to be liberated by the shot of the next besiegers of Perugia. Dennis
In 1540 another conqueror of Perugia decided to leave his mark on the ancient gates of the town. Pope Paul III Farnese restored papal authority in Perugia defeating the Baglioni, local rulers whose audacity led them to slay a papal legate: Perugia was plundered by the mercenary troops of Pier Luigi Farnese, the Pope's son.
The Pope ordered Antonio da Sangallo the Younger to build a fortress (Rocca Paolina) above the houses of the Baglioni: its objective was to ensure the town would never try to challenge his rule again: Rocca Paolina was not meant to protect Perugia from external enemies as an inscription on its walls clearly stated: ad coercendam Perusinorum audaciam (to restrict the boldness of the inhabitants of Perugia). The town was also deprived of many of its trading and self-government privileges.

Ancient Porta Marzia: inscription: Colonia Vibia Perusia Augusta; fragments of ancient bronze statues portraying Jupiter, Castor and Pollux and their horses; coat of arms of Pope Paul III whose name is still readable: P(ontifex) P(aulus) III

Antonio da Sangallo included Porta Marzia, an old Etruscan gate, in one of the fortress bastions. You may wish to see the bastion the architect designed for the Pope to protect Rome.
The citizens of Perugia never forgot the harsh treatment they received from Pope Paul III and in the XIXth century his symbols were erased; his memory however survives on a gate which is still named after the fleurs-de-lis (gigli), the heraldic symbol of the Farnese, which once decorated it.

(left) Detail of a fresco by Benedetto Bonfigli (second half of the XVth century) showing a view of the southern part of Perugia with the church of S. Ercolano near Porta Marzia; (centre) S. Ercolano seen from the terrace which stands on the site of Rocca Paolina; (right) S. Ercolano seen from Corso Cavour

The fresco shows the high number of towers which were erected by the most important families to protect themselves. The church of S. Ercolano at the southern entrance to the town was actually a fortification. Pope Paul III decreed that all the private towers should be pulled down or reduced in size and this applied to some bell towers too, e.g. that of S. Domenico and even to the upper part of S. Ercolano.
The church stood on the burial site (outside the city walls) of St. Ercolano, Bishop of Perugia who was killed by Totila, king of the Ostrogoths, because he had opposed the seizure of the town in 549.

View of Borgo S. Angelo (a neighbourhood outside Arco Etrusco); in the foreground Palazzo Gallenga Stuart and the bell tower of S. Fortunato and S. Agostino behind it

It is not for me to describe or even enumerate the manifold objects of interest in Perugia, either in its picturesque streets, its cathedral and five-score churches, or in its treasures of architecture, sculpture, and painting. Those of the latter art alone, the works of Perugino and the Umbrian school, are so abundant as generally to absorb what little time and attention the traveller passing between Florence and Rome has to spare for a provincial city; so that few give a thought or an hour to the antiquities in which Perugia is equally wealthy. Dennis
Perugia is chiefly known to fame as the city of Perugino, Raphael's master; but it has a still higher claim to renown and ought to figure in the gazetteer of fond memory as the little City of the infinite View. (..) I spent a week in the place, and when it was gone I had had enough of Perugino, but hadn't had enough of the View.
Henry James - Italian Hours - 1874
For centuries the Etruscan enclosure was large enough to contain the whole population of the town: after the year 1000 Perugia, as most of Europe, started to enjoy a period of growth: the controversies between the Papacy and the Empire helped Perugia in developing forms of self-government aimed at improving trade and manufacturing: the prosperity of the town attracted many farmers who settled outside the ancient walls. Towards the end of the XIIIth century new walls were built to enlarge the town: because the Etruscan ones were almost on the very edge of the hill, the expansion took place on the ridge of two nearby hills: Borgo S. Angelo to the north, Borgo S. Antonio to the east and Borgo S. Pietro to the south.

View of Borgo S. Antonio; in the foreground the bell tower of S. Maria Nuova

From the hill on which the town is planted radiate a dozen ravines, down whose sides the houses slide and scramble with an alarming indifference. James
Notwithstanding their inclusion in the new walls of the town the new neighbourhoods maintained for centuries their characteristic of being populated by the lower classes, as the most important families of Perugia preferred to live in their towers (later on palaces) near the town main squares.

View of Borgo S. Pietro with S. Domenico and S. Pietro de' Cassinesi, a Benedictine monastery

The medieval town expanded southwards outside Porta Marzia in the direction of Rome. At first the expansion was limited: new walls protected a gigantic complex built by the Dominican Order (today the monastery houses a very important archaeological museum); during the XVth century the neighbourhood was enlarged to reach S. Pietro (you can see its bell tower to the far right of the image) and a new imposing gate was built in 1587 beyond the church. The street which crossed Borgo S. Pietro (today's Corso Cavour) was also known as the Papal Street, because the popes or their representatives entered Perugia through it.

Medieval walls: (left) a section in Borgo S. Angelo; (centre) Porta S. Giacomo; (right) Porta Crucia, thus named after Ottavio di Santacroce governor of Perugia who restored it in 1576

The new walls were far less imposing than the ancient ones: their thickness is perhaps one third of the Etruscan ones: maybe for this reason the old enclosure was retained and the town relied on it for a last defence: the medieval gates were rather simple: some of them were rebuilt in the late XVIth century and were given a shape reminiscent of that of Arco Etrusco.

Cassero di Porta S. Angelo: (left) external side; (right) internal side; a side view is shown in the image used as background for this page

The only major fortification of the medieval walls was a gate at the end of Borgo S. Angelo. Cassero is usually translated as quarterdeck, but it also means a donjon, a fortification from Arabic "al qasr" - the castle. It was built in the XIVth century, but it was strengthened by Braccio Fortebracci aka Braccio da Montone, a condottiere, i.e. a mercenary warlord, who ruled over Perugia between 1416 and 1424, at the time of the Great Schism. See the Cassero of Castel Fiorentino which was built when the town was a possession of Perugia.

(left) 1765 fresco at Porta S. Pietro, at the mid of Borgo S. Pietro, portraying the Virgin Mary with St. Dominic and St. Francis; (right) nearby Porta S. Girolamo (late XVIth century) near a Franciscan convent; the road leads to Assisi

Move to The Two Piazzas, The Papal Street (Borgo S. Pietro), S. Pietro de' Cassinesi, The Tomb of the Volumni, The Archaeological Museum or wander about to see other churches, palaces and fountains.