“You would be charmed by taking a view of this country from the top of one of our neighbouring mountains, and would fancy that not a real, but some imaginary landscape, painted by the most exquisite pencil, lay before you, such an harmonious variety of beautiful objects meets the eye…” Pliny the Younger (who lived nearby, circa 100AD)
Why come to Umbria?
Umbria has a specially favoured climate. Not for nothing is Umbria called the green heart of Italy. In midsummer, the hills around Siena are brown and sere as the heat haze shimmers over the landscape and the country tracks are so dry that dust from passing cars turns roadside plants a ghostly white.
But cross the pass behind Cortona, into the valleys that lead cross-wise towards the Upper Tiber Valley, and the landscape immediately becomes fresh and green once more. The soil is deep and fertile and water, always a precious resource in Italy, is more abundant here. The quality of the light here has a particular beauty which has inspired generations of painters.
It is unsurprising then that, far from being undiscovered, Umbria has been home to successive waves of settlement over time, as neighbouring civilisations have discovered this green and pleasant land and decided to move on in. In recent years foreigners (a term which, for these purposes, includes Italians from Puglia, Trento or Rome as much as English, German or other incomers) have been buying and restoring long-abandoned farmhouses and reversing the depopulation of this countryside that took place over the decades following the Second World War. That phenomenon is entirely consistent with the pattern of Umbria’s history, going back over 3000 years. However, unlike those parts of Tuscany that have become irreverently known as Chiantishire, where tourism has become so much the dominant industry that one at times has the sense of being in a sort of Tuscan themepark, here there is a balance: tourism is but one element in what is now a thriving local economy; and although you’ll hear a good number of other languages spoken as you potter about the markets, Italian predominates by far.
Our local town of Umbertide is a good example of that balance. Guidebooks to the area are dismissive of it, noting that it was badly bombed during the Second World War and passing hastily on to other, better known sites nearby. But take a closer look.
Umbertide has long been of strategic importance as the site of one of the (in Medieval times, very few) bridges over the Tiber in its upper stretches. You’ll find it on ancient maps of the area under its old name of Fratta (it was renamed Umbertide in honour of Umberto I). There is an attractive historic centre, complete with castle (now an art gallery) and a circular Renaissance church, the Collegiata, in a style straight out of a painting by Perugino or Raphael.
The central square hosts a busy market on Wednesdays (and a smaller artisan’s market on Saturdays). You can buy classic Italian high fashion in a shop on one corner or damasked-linen upholstery fabric in Busatti, on the far side of the square. To the side of the historic centre runs the railway track of the little train line that putters up and down the Tiber valley from Sansepolcro at the Northernmost end to Terni, South of Perugia.
Cross the track and you find yourself in a jewel of a Renaissance piazza with, along one side, a perfect little cloister and the weathered facade of the church of Santa Croce, now a museum, in which you’ll find a magnificent altarpiece by Signorelli. If you walk back to the main road and follow it to the right, to the railway station, you pass a series of imposing 19th century villas and the rather Napoleonic secondary school, with the rather bellicose war memorial outside.
Beyond the station, you’re into modern Umbertide. This is the bit the guidebooks hate. There’s an extensive area of modern development: blocks of flats line either side of roads with names like “Yuri Gagarin” and “Martin Luther King”; a large modernist church with swirling wrought iron work around the sides stands next to campanile of reinforced concrete, boasting an impressive array of bells of all shapes and sizes; beyond that, there’s a shopping centre, a sports stadium, and an industrial zone. But here’s the whole reason why this region is not just a playground for tourists, not merely a living museum, but a thriving and vibrant community whose past is intimately bound up with its present. This perhaps helps to explain why those who live here are not jealous of their heritage but are, in our experience, exceptionally welcoming of those who come here wishing to share in it. So, come to Umbria not just for its history, art, picturesque hill-top towns and unspoilt countryside but also for all that the Umbria of today has to offer: imaginative modern design and fashion; cooking which uses seasonal organic produce and combines traditional recipes with a new sensibility and willingness to experiment; internationally renowned music festivals; and, in short, the perfect balance between the pleasures of nature and those of civilization.
History and culture
“…you would see grandfathers and great-grandfathers of those now grown up to be young men, hear old stories and the dialect of our ancestors, and fancy yourself born in some former age were you to come here” Pliny the Younger
Pliny the Younger
Some 1900 years ago, during the first century AD, Pliny the Younger had an estate somewhere in these same hills, between Cortona and Citta di Castello (referred to in his letters by its Latin name: Tifernum). Then, as now, the Tuscan border ran through these hills. Pliny describes his house as being in Tuscany but near Citta di Castello “a town…which, with more affection than wisdom, put itself under my patronage when I was yet a youth.” He evidently felt as passionately about his estate here as we do about Casa Nova. At the top of this page and scattered through this website you will find snippets from a letter he wrote to Domitius Apollinaris, extolling the beauty of the region and describing in loving detail his villa and its gardens. Amongst other things, he valued it as a place he could get away from “troublesome clients” and enjoy time with his family. It’s just the same today. For the full text of the letter, which is a great read, click here.
Etruria
Pliny was a relative latecomer to the area, however. Long before the Romans came to these hills, the Etruscans occupied this territory. At the height of their power in the 6-7th centuries BC, Etruria was a federation of 12 city states, Perugia one of them, covering all of central Italy. If you visit Cortona, about 30 minutes from here, and park in the car park outside the city walls, be sure to take a good look at the walls as you walk through the gateway: you’ll find that the medieval city walls are built on top of the much earlier Etruscan fortifications, constructed of such enormous black blocks of stone fitted so closely together it is difficult to imagine how the Etruscans could have achieved this with no more than manpower and levers. In Cortona is a Museum of the Etruscans where you can find out more about this rather mysterious civilisation, with its blend of joie de vivre and savagery. There is a particularly beautiful ornate bronze candelabrum and a wonderfully lifelike portrait from an Etruscan tomb. See the museum website for details of opening times: Museo dell’Accademia Etrusca e della Città di Cortona.
Medieval mysticism and bloodshed
As well as being at the physical heart of Italy, Umbria is also at its spiritual heart. St Francis lived and preached in Umbria, and following his death in 1226 the Franciscan order thrived across the region and especially at the order’s principal monastery: Assisi. The extraordinary multi-level basilica with its frescoes by the Lorenzetti, Simone Martini and Giotto (or non-Giotto, depending whom you read) attracts millions of visitors (many of them pilgrims) each year; and the character of the region is stamped by Franciscanism. The Canticle of the Sun, St Francis’s famous song celebrating “Brother Sun”, “Sister Moon” and “Sister Death”, was composed in the Umbrian dialect. You can read it here.
If Franciscan mendicant preaching affected towns across Umbria, so too did the frequently bloody history of the region. From the battle of Lake Trasimeno (in which Hannibal massacred the Roman army in 217 BC) to the struggles to liberate this part of Italy during WWII, Umbria has seen more than its fair share of bloodshed. Perugia has sometimes been described as the bloodiest town in all Italy, a reference to the bitter feuding as rival families strove for political power in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The landscape is still punctuated by fortified castles and watch-towers, while sections of Perugia are built on the levelled houses of previously dominant families (such as the Baglioni, whose palaces were demolished to make way for the Rocca Paolina in 1540).
Art History
The artistic heritage of Central Italy (Southern Tuscany, Umbria and the Marche) is exceptionally rich and diverse; and Casa Nova, situated right in the middle of this area, is fantastically well placed for its exploration, enjoyment and study.
One of the owners of Casa Nova, Dr Tom Henry, is an internationally recognised expert in Italian Renaissance art, in particular Central Italian painters such as Piero della Francesca, Luca Signorelli, Pietro Perugino, Pintoricchio and Raphael, so this is a topic that is close to our hearts!
Bespoke guided tours can sometimes be arranged (see Tom’s separate website, Centotorce.it, for further details or email him at art@casanovaumbria.eu).
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