I met Ellen Craig through working on my upcoming Umbria book. Instantly, I knew I’d found a kindred spirit. When I asked her for her thoughts about Orvieto—where she lives with her husband whose family has been in the area since the 1200’s—she clued me in on some aspects of Umbria that, living on this side of the region, I’d never known! I was thrilled when she agreed to write a post for my Local Guide Series. I think you’ll love this one.

Orvieto's Place in the Umbrian Landscape

Umbria. The only region in Italy to border neither sea nor foreign country. Umbria is bounded to the north by the region of Tuscany, to the west and south by Lazio, and to the east by Le Marche.

Everyone knows about the sun drenched villages and fields of Tuscany. Tuscany is now a world class brand, long gone are the days when it was simply an Italian region. Its capital, Florence, is a bastion of art and culture, the flower of the Renaissance. And the region of Lazio is the home of Rome, another dream destination of many today. Rome’s name alone immediately conjures images of exotic splendor and sophisticated culture.

But their neighbor, Umbria? What is Umbria’s identity? What is Umbria known for? 

If you are like most travelers to Italy, especially if this is your first or second visit, you will make a beeline for the hotspots of Rome, Florence, Venice, and Amalfi coast. 

If you have a bit of extra time, or have already hit those hotspots previously, you may decide to get off the beaten path. And you may hear about Umbria as an option for doing so. Guidebooks and internet search pages will tell you that Umbria’s principal sites are Assisi, known as Italy’s spiritual mecca, and Perugia, the chocolate city that is also the better known of Umbria’s two provinces (the other being Terni). 

If you dig just slightly more on Umbria, you will quickly uncover the options of Spoleto, Gubbio, Todi, Spello, Orvieto. Perhaps even Montefalco, or Castiglione del Lago, or Bevagna. You might hear about the formerly magical towns in the eastern part of Umbria devastated by earthquakes several years ago - Norcia, Amatrice, and Castelluccio, now piles of rubble that the government still can’t seem to find a way to rebuild. 

Rarely will the internet tell you about the hundreds of undiscovered village gems that dot the Umbrian countryside. They are “sperduti”, as we say in Italian, a mystical word which means a combination of lost and forgotten in the middle of nowhere. Still inhabited, these small gems move forward slowly, limping to keep up with world progress, and at the same time remaining hundreds of years behind.

And so, what can the traveler expect of the Umbrian towns indicated in travel guides? And what unites these places in a sense of common regional culture?

This question plagued me for some time. I first started visiting the western part of Umbria over 15 years ago, and several years ago bought a house here. Our part of Umbria is home to the small city of Orvieto, and we are also very close to the borders of both Tuscany and Lazio. But when I heard people talk about Umbria, or read it about it, our western part of the region was rarely mentioned. If it were mentioned, they talked only about the city of Orvieto proper, and 2-3 of its most important highlights. When I read about other parts of Umbria, they seemed so unlike our western environs. 

So I felt quite alienated from the internet’s description of Umbria and it’s highlights. Perhaps it would be like someone from Tahoe City in California, who only hears California described as Hollywood or Los Angeles or Malibu or San Francisco. Or someone from Reno who hears people associate Nevada only with Las Vegas.

But why was our corner rarely mentioned? And why did it also seem so different?

Of course, some of today’s differences between Orvieto in western Umbria and the classic Umbrian cities of eastern Umbria are simply explained by ease of travel. More Orvietans do their big city shopping in Viterbo than in Perugia even though the distance is the same. The road quality to Viterbo is superior to that of the road to Perugia, due to a set of thorny hills between Perugia and Orvieto. We will get to this later on too below, when the Byzantines used this thorny geography to their advantage over their rivals the Lombards.

In addition to road quality, distance is another easiest answer. “Terra di Confine” is a nickname for our area, it means “Borderland”. This spur of Umbria, where Orvieto is located, nestles up against both Tuscany and Lazio. “Terra di Confine” is also the name of a lovely wine from the Maravalle family’s winery in the nearby village of Ficulle. We can arrive in Tuscan towns like San Casciano or Cetona, or Lazio towns like Bolsena and Trevinano in just 20-40 minutes. The idea of driving to Spoleto or Assisi for practical matters is not within the realm of the reasonable in the mind of an Orvietan.

The Orvietan thinks, instead, of places like Spoleto or Assisi as where they might go as a tourist themselves, where they might go as a getaway. Even though these towns are in the same region of Umbria, in the mindset of the Orvietan they are in a completely different category, in the same category as the Castelli Romani or towns in Emilia Romagna. 

But while distance may be the easiest answer, it’s not the most complete one. I knew from early on, because everyone here will quickly tell you, that Orvieto had been a part of the Papal States under the command of the Pope. But I also knew there must be more to it. And so I set out to study the origins, nature, history, and identity of Umbria. 

Umbrian and Italian history is extraordinarily complex, with mind numbing layers of history and thousands of powerful entities vying for control of the fertile and strategically positioned Italian peninsula. 

Disclaimers: While I have three university degrees, I am in no way a professional scholar - I’m an armchair scholar at best. I probably have made some mistakes in my assumptions and observations. I’m open to being challenged and glad to correct any errors I’ve made. 

I am half Italian but that Italian half is not Umbrian, so I hope I can see Umbria more objectively than an Umbrian. I’ve also consulted many Italians and Americans who have lived in Umbria but who have also lived in other parts of Italy or the world.

All this to say, I’ve strived to be objective, but if there is anything you read here that doesn’t seem quite right, or needs clarification, please reach out to me. 

Italy’s History

The history of the Italian peninsula will make your head spin. The borders of the country and its regions today - for most of the past three thousand years - were not only different from today but also almost constantly in flux. Let’s take a moment to think about the recent history of the Italian peninsula, so that we can then put Umbria in this context.

Many people are surprised to learn that Italy is a younger country than America, that Italy took on its current full-peninsula form only in 1870 when Italy was finally unified. Even after unification, there were national and regional border changes that continued into the 1940’s.

Prior to the 1870 unification, the many autonomous zones of the Italian peninsula were fiercely and independently governed. Among them were the Duchy of Tuscany, the Papal States, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the Kingdom of Sardinia and Piemonte, and dozens of other duchies or principalities. It’s not uncommon in Italy to hear about, even today, a living Prince or Princess. “Of what?”, you might ask. Of little tiny states that somehow survived into the 19th century. We even have a cousin who is a Princess. 

Looking at the map you can see the major pieces of land that were unified into the Kingdom of Italy from 1860-1870.

Italy Cultures and Languages

This mish-mash of wildly diverse cultures was chosen to unify Italy merely for their shared geographic existence on the Italian peninsula, not because they were similar culturally or administratively to one another. There were the French influenced Savoy in northwest Piemonte, the Austrians in northeast Veneto, the Bourbons in the south, the Latins in the center. 

Another example of Italy’s indigenous cultural diversity is language. When Italy was unified, hundreds of dialects were spoken across the peninsula. Dialects in Italy are not like in America. It would be more precise to say that America has accents and not dialects. Italy’s dialects are so colorfully diverse that sometimes from one town to the next they cannot understand each other unless they speak in Italian.

At the time of unification in 1860-1870, the Tuscan language known as Italian and refined by Dante and Petrarch, was spoken only in Tuscany and by the educated class. A national language was needed, and Tuscan (Italian) was chosen as the national language. But consider that in 1902, only 30 years after unification, just 2% of the people living on the Italian peninsula spoke Italian. Think about that for a moment: 2% of the “Italians” spoke Italian.

In America, if a person from Boston encounters a person from New Orleans, they will be able to easily have a conversation. But if a person from Venice or Piemonte in northern Italy goes to Palermo in southern Italy, they will not understand one word of Palermo dialect. And vice versa. Even the northerners, the Piemontesi and the Venetians, will not be able to understand one another. They must communicate, instead, in Italian. 

A few years ago, I went to Sicily with my Piemontese cousins. During a passeggiata before dinner in Siracusa, we were passed by some Sicilian families chatting amongst themselves. We did not understand one word, and one of my cousins said the equivalent of, “Ladies, we are not in Kansas anymore”. Literally she said something even more blunt, “Ladies, we are not in Italy anymore.” (“Ragazze, non siamo più in Italia.”)

In the first half of the 20th century, it took decades of presenting in Italian on radio and television, as well as convincing local teachers to teach in Italian, to make progress in the spread of the usage of Italian. And still today, people usually speak both Italian and their local dialect. 

Take a look at the dialect map, keeping in mind that within every color there are hundreds of variants. Dialects vary from town to town. My southern Lazio cousins tell me that their dialect is very much Latin based, while the town next to them has a dialect based on French, due to the border of the Bourbons and the Papal States that historically ran between the two towns. 

Food, by the way, is just as varied as cultures and languages on the Italian peninsula. Italian food does not exist except outside of Italy. There is Roman food and Tuscan food, Sicilian food and Tyrolean food, just to name a very few. 

Umbrian Dialects

So what about the dialects in Umbria? Generally speaking, Umbria is part of a larger band of dialects called Central Italian. In the preceding map, it shows up as “Cit” which means Central Italian. 

In the central Italy dialect map here, Orvieto falls into the category IIb “Viterbese”, reflecting the strong influence of the Viterbo dialect just an hour away in Lazio. You can also see quite a variety of types of dialects within Umbria, IIa, IIb, and IIc, and the surrounding areas.

I find this extremely interesting - the Orvieto dialect isn’t called “Perugino” or “Spoletano” because of influences from Perugia or Spoleto. It is instead “Viterbese” from the influence and connection to Viterbo, a town not even in Umbria, a town with which, as we will see shortly, Orvieto had many long and historical ties. The Orvieto dialect is much more similar to the dialect of Viterbo than to the dialects of Umbrian towns. 

Umbria History

So getting back to Umbria, how does Umbria fit into this goulash of histories, cultures, and languages on the Italian peninsula? And why isn’t Umbria itself a unified regional culture?

As it turns out, Umbria as an administrative region is a fairly modern concept. It was never a well defined region in and of itself, unlike some other areas of Italy. For example, Tuscany was an independent state for many centuries, the Duchy of Tuscany. Piemonte and Sardinia corresponded to the Kingdom of the Savoy. Instead, Umbria was simply one part of a huge swath of central Italy that stretched from Rome to Bologna, and was under the command of the Pope from the middle ages through the unification of Italy in 1870. 

But since, as we mentioned, Italian history is dizzyingly complex, let’s keep it simple. And let’s go in order, from millions of years ago, to the Etruscans, to the Popes, to modern history. Let’s use maps, because maps are visually fun.

And let’s start with the whales. 

The Whales and Geology

Three to five million years ago, during the Pliocene era, this part of western Umbria was underneath an ancient sea. The central and eastern parts of Umbria were dry land.

While today Umbria is completely landlocked, it is very normal for us in western Umbria to find ancient, fragile seashells, either whole or in fragments. If you know where to go, it’s not even difficult to find them, it takes just a matter of seconds. 

In the map below, you can see that Orvieto and Terni were covered by water, with Allerona on the shore, and all the other modern Umbria towns on dry land (Perugia, Foligno, Spoleto).

The seashells come in all sizes and the small ones, about the size of a quarter dollar, are so fragile that they can fall apart as you are extracting them from the clayish sandy soil. I always find this immensely sad, that this object from millions of years ago lasted intact until I touched it. But there are literally billions of them in the soil, and most are below the surface. 

The big ones can be more robust, and sometimes resemble a clam the size of your fist. These are more rarely found, in part because most near the surface have already been collected. 

Most bewildering is the mind boggling discovery of the skeletons of several whales. You can visit them in the “Museo dei Cicli Geologici”, located in the little village of Allerona, near where the whale skeletons were actually found. Allerona town merits a visit not only for this museum, but also for the staggeringly beautiful 360 degree views across two separate valleys. Allerona is one of the highest villages in the area, and here you can see into southern Tuscany and northern Lazio. Be sure to stop for lunch or dinner at La Panatella, a restaurant that defies definition but falls somewhere between trattoria and elegant bistro and Michelin stars. 

The incredible geological history of western Umbria has gifted a spectacular richness to the soil. As a result, many excellent wines and olive oils are produced here. Our family’s olive oil, for example, has been analyzed for acidity and polyphenols, and our numbers are phenomenal. We are near just 1% acidity: consider that the USA allows a maximum of 8% acidity and Italy allows a maximum of 6% acidity to allow the label of “extra virgin olive oil”. Also our polyphenols are very high, almost 600 when other olive oils are usually quite a bit lower than that. 

Orvieto is famous for its Orvieto Classico white wine, but I recommend you try the many other whites and reds that are little known but excellent. Some of them actually reflect the Pliocene history of the era. If you visit the Vitalonga winery in Ficulle, you can observe their private collection of seashells - the wine and paired lunches make this winery a terrific lunch or dinner destination. 

Other wines grown in this area covered by the Pliocene sea include: “Mare Antico”, which means “ancient sea”, is a fabulous white from the Decugnano dei Barbi winery. “Pliocene” is a terrific white made in the traditional, not modern style, from the winery of Riccardo Danielli, and its label even features a whale, a small nod to this area’s primordial history. 

One of the other delights of living in this part of Umbria is the ease of access to the countryside and to wild places. Recently, it was designated as a UNESCO Biosphere for its wide variety of flora and fauna, as well as its sustainability. For us, this means frequent walks and bike rides in the hills and forests.

Another reason for Orvieto’s closer sense of identification with northern Lazio and southern Tuscany is geography. Not only the city of Orvieto has volcanic tufa cliffs - much of our surrounding countryside shows the characteristic wide streaks of white, the “calanchi”, against the green and gold hills. Nearby Bagnoregio, in Lazio, the “Dying City”, as well as its surrounding countryside, is a similar example of this geologic phenomenon.

Etruscans vs Umbrians

Let’s now jump ahead in history to about 1000-500 B.C. 

For at least 500 years, the official eastern border of Etruria was quite clearly marked by the Tiber river, which flows from Emilia Romagna in northern Italy to Rome. As a result, Etruria encompassed Perugia (ancient Perusia) and Orvieto (ancient Velzna). It also included a very considerable part of the Italian peninsula from Rome to Mantova. At the time, approximately 6-7 centuries B.C., Rome was just a small village ruled by the kings of Etruria, the Etruscans.

The Umbri tribe, on the other hand, was on the other side of the Tiber river. Their lands encompassed the towns which later became Spoleto, Todi, and Assisi. Umbria, of course, takes its name from these Umbri, or Ombri, who were one of the many tribes later conquered by the Romans. Some say the Umbri were originally of Celtic origin, and had a distinct language that was both written and spoken. 

And so in this divide between Etruscans and Umbri, we can already start to see that modern day Umbria includes some cities that were originally Etruscan and not of the Umbri: Perugia and Orvieto to name the two most important. These cities were never part of the tribal lands of the Umbri. 

In the map here you can see Etruscan lands to the west and the Umbri lands to the east. Velzna and Perusia are Orvieto and Perugia, respectively. And what’s really interesting is that we see that most of modern day Umbria was never Etruscan: Spoleto, Assisi, Todi, all fall today in what is marked on the map below as Umbrians.

The Etruscans had their own language, too, as well as enormous temples and richly ornamented tombs. Still today you can visit these temples and tombs. One example here in Orvieto is the Belvedere temple near the principal entrance to the high part town. A wide assortment of archaeological parks are scattered down below the cliffs. 

Another great example of this contrast between modern and very ancient is the Etruscan archeological dig of Fanum Voltumnae. We see it three times a week as it lies right next to our dog training park. Fanum Voltumnae is of extraordinary importance to Etruscan history as it was the primary sanctuary of the Etruscans - not just a temple or a sanctuary, but the primary one. You can arrange a visit with a professional guide or archeologist. 

When our giant, boisterous, poorly behaved dog creates a scene during dog training, it’s a classic parody of “from the sublime to the ridiculous”! For those of us who live in Orvieto in the 21st century, it is completely normal to pass these pre-Roman remnants in the course of our daily life. 

Similarly, the church of Sant’Andrea on one of Orvieto’s principal piazzas has incredible archeological ruins which can be visited with a guide. You can see all the levels of history in this church: medieval Christian, early Christian, Roman, Etruscan, and Villanovan. The Villanovans came before the Etruscans, Etruscans came before the Romans, the Romans came before the Christians, and so on.

Etruscan history is a more vivid presence here in Orvieto than in almost any Italian city I have visited. For locals, it is normal to find pre-Roman (usually Etruscan) ruins in spaces below street level. We even have Etruscan tombs in both our homes, two levels underground. To anyone who lives here, this is at best mildly interesting, but to outsiders it is quite eye-popping. For us, it’s just our very real awareness of being a small flash in a long continuum of existence. 
Visitors to Orvieto can view these levels in publicly accessible places like the well-known Orvieto Underground, or lesser known but just as fabulous Pozzo della Cava. This latter is privately owned (but publicly accessible) by a family that started digging and found extraordinary levels including tombs below ground. In fact, Pozza della Cava is a great example of Orvietan skipping straight from Etruscan ruins to medieval, as if the Romans didn’t even exist. Their website has sections you can click on for information about Etruscan ruins and about medieval ruins, and nothing about Roman ruins. 

You can find Roman ruins here in Orvieto, too, but you can find Roman ruins anywhere in Italy or even Europe. In Italy, you can find Roman ruins as far north as Valle d’Aosta and as far south as Calabria. Outside Italy you can find Roman ruins in Scotland and in Africa. But the Etruscans were only in central Italy. The Etruscans came before the Romans, and their capital was here in Orvieto.

Due to the heavy prevalence of Etruscan ruins, I find that the Orvietans smirk a bit about Roman history and ruins. Of course the grandeur of ancient Rome, the Roman empire, and so forth, are vastly important in world history. But I’ve observed that the ancient Romans seem too recent for the Orvietans, when Orvieto has so many pre-Roman era ruins. What Roman ruins exist here - and they do exist - are often unmarked and unkempt under grassy overgrowths. One example is Porta di Pagliano, an important Roman archaeological site heavily damaged in the 2012 floods and abandoned. No one in Orvieto talks about Porta di Pagliano. 

Orvieto also boasts not one but two important Etruscan museums on the same piazza as the Duomo and Papal Palace. One is the Museo Claudio Faina and the other is the National Archeological Museum of Orvieto, located inside the Papal Palace. 

Romans

Etruria controlled Rome until about 500 B.C., when the Romans rebelled and began their own now world-famous conquest of progressively larger reaches of tribes and lands. 

Rome started making gains on both sides of the Tiber river, in both Umbri and Etruscan lands. Both the Etruscans and the Umbri finally capitulated to the Romans at almost exactly the same time, around 264-260 B.C.

There had been 12 principal cities in Etruria, with the Etruscan capital being Velzna. It’s fun to watch scholars who delight in arguing about which modern day Italian city was the location of Velzna. The two principal suspects have always been Orvieto and Bolsena - Bolsena is just across the border in Lazio. Recent research seems to point much more heavily to Orvieto being the capital of Velzna, in part due to the frequency of rich tombs discovered here. 

The confusion between the two also lies in their Latin names transcribed from the original Etruscan, as well as the ancient Roman terror that binds them. Both Orvieto and Bolsena seem to have been called, in Latin, “Volsinii”, which is a Latinization of the original Etruscan “Velzna”.

On some maps you will see the two cities differentiated as “Volsinii Vet” (referring to Orvieto, where “Vet” is short for “Veteres” meaning “ancient” in Latin) and just plain “Volsinii” or “Volsinii Novi” (referring to Bolsena, where “Novi” means “new” in Latin). Old Volsinii and New Volsinii. Think of York and New York.

One compelling current historic understanding of their connection seems to be as follows. When the Etruscan capital, Velzna/Orvieto, finally fell to the Romans in 264 B.C, the Romans suffered severe losses including the death of their consul and military general Quintus Fabius Maximus. The Romans were so enraged about this that they burnt what remained of Orvieto to the ground, and led the surviving Etruscans on a forced march to nearby Bolsena, about 21 km away. 

Of course, there are many nuances of this story, that it was the Orvietan Etruscan aristocracy who actually requested help from the Romans due to a slave uprising, and it was mostly the slaves battling the Romans. But the end result is the same: the Romans conquered Orvieto in a Pyrrhic victory and depopulated the city, with the surviving Orvietans forced to live in Bolsena. 

After that devastating depopulation, the tufa cliff city of Orvieto lay abandoned for several centuries. The new city of Bolsena was referred to as Volsinii Novi (New Volsinii town), while Orvieto was referred to as Volsinii Veteres (Ancient Volsinii town). When eventually, centuries later, Orvieto began to be repopulated, the Orvietans referred to Orvieto as “Urbs Vetus”, or the “Ancient City”. Urbs-Vetus over time became the name “Orvieto”. If you say Urbs Vetus and Orvieto out loud, you can see how phonetically they are similar.

We must now also mention a word here about the term “Tuscia”. Today, “Tuscia” has come to refer to Viterbo and the surrounding countryside, including parts of western Umbria. The Tuscia area, which includes Orvieto, is united in similar language, food, and attitudes. 

Originally the Tuscia was much larger than just the Viterbo area. When the ancient Romans finally conquered Etruria, they used the name Tuscia in addition to or instead of Etruria. Tuscia was simply another word for Etruria. The Tuscia designation shrank over time, even though it inspired some local place names. Modern Tuscany took its name from Tuscia, and there is even a town in Lazio called Tuscania. But today Tuscia just refers to these borderlands in and around Viterbo, including Orvieto.

The lofty stature of the name “Etruria” also lived on in the memories of the people. Much later on, and I’m skipping ahead quite a bit to the 1500s on, the Duchy of Tuscany even subtitled itself in Latin “Magnus Ducatus Etruriae”, or “Great Duchy of Etruria”. And for a few years in the early 1800’s when the Bourbons ruled Tuscany, they named it the Kingdom of Etruria.

But let’s resume our orderly chronological progression.

Longobards and Byzantines

We could spend a lot of time talking about what happened after the fall of Rome in 476 A.D.. But for our purposes here, let’s just say there was an awful lot of chaos. What with the Huns and the Goths and the Visigoths, everyone was jockeying for a piece of the former Roman empire. 

By about 600-700 AD, control of the Italian peninsula had been consolidated in large territories. The Longobards to the north and the Byzantines to the east fought heavily for central Italy. The towns of Perugia and Orvieto passed back and forth from the control of one to the other even from year to year. For more details check out this link. 

As far as Umbria goes, you can see on the map that during this time Perugia lies in the Exarchate, on a small strip of land connecting Byzantine-occupied Ravenna with Rome. Orvieto was held, instead, by the northern Lombards. Most of the rest of modern day Umbria was in the Duchy of Spoleto. (see map below). Orvieto was therefore quite separate from Perugia, and even farther removed from Spoleto and its surrounding towns. 

The Exarchate’s narrow strip of land not only connected the key coastal and political cities of Ravenna and Rome, but also lay along a very thorny, hilly, rocky part of Italy. This was on purpose: it made things very difficult for the Longobards to penetrate. 

Even today, those of us who live here in Orvieto avoid trips to Perugia when at all possible. Instead, we do most of our big city shopping in Viterbo, in the region of Lazio. While Viterbo and Perugia are both equidistant in time from Orvieto (one hour by car), the road quality is much different. The road to Viterbo has just a few curves and many straightaways. But the road to Perugia is extremely twisty with many ascents and descents. The road itself is always crumbling due to rough weather. I can understand how that terrain kept out even the marauding Longobards!

Medieval through Renaissance, and the Church

In the next 800 or so years, until about 1500, the towns and cities of Umbria experienced an ebb and flow of military and governmental control. 

Initially, the struggles and battles were town against town, or alliances of a handful of towns against another handful of other towns. These alliances might last a few months or a few years. Of course, out of this “inter” fighting among towns, arose the modern day concept of “campanilismo” which of course still exists today. 

Campanilismo today refers to the intense pride and allegiance to one’s town over any allegiance to the province or region or country you live in. Italy is full of campanilismo, which is one of the reasons the national government is constantly changing and can’t seem to get much done. “Campanile” literally means “belltower” but has come to mean also “hometown”. 

Due to its focus of pride at the town level, campanilismo also means that there is extreme rivalry with neighboring towns who are viewed as enemies. I have witnessed it first hand in the towns and little villages here in western Umbria, where one village may even go so far as to detest the neighboring village. Derogatory nicknames are invented for one other. Often this behavior has its outlets in calcio (soccer) with its impassioned fan clubs and riotous behavior. 

Two small local villages here in the Orvieto area, Fabro and Ficulle, are a great example of campanilismo. Only seven kilometers apart, one up high with a commanding view of the valley, and one down low near the Chiani river, they maintain a vitriolic feud that comes out most potently in the summer and autumn soccer matches. 

The Fabro soccer fans call the Ficulle fans the “Cocciari”, a name which comes from Ficulle’s history of terracotta and ceramics. It is intended to be derogatory as in “hard headed” or “head full of rocks”. The Ficullesi instead call the Fabro fans the “Bobbari”, which refers to the sludgy muddy silt of the Chiani river, which is not known as a particularly clean river, perhaps containing more than just mud. So we have the “rock heads” and the “sludges”. The fans shout these names at each other with passion and fury, letting tensions fly out of escape valve of ancient rivalries. 

Aside from “inter” fighting between towns in medieval times, there was also “intra” fighting of families even within a town. A classic medieval example of interfighting within a given town is the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, factions that supported the Pope versus the Holy Roman Emperor. Many medieval Italian cities experienced this phenomenon. The most touristed and well known is San Gimignano, another Etruscan town. It had 72 towers inside the town walls for protection within the city due to the centuries of fighting between Guelphs and Ghibellines. In Orvieto, this struggle occurred during the 1100s-1300s, between the Guelph and Ghibelline families of the Monaldeschi and the Filippeschi. 

Orvieto’s self-destructive behavior of infighting is especially surprising when it occurred during an important alliance in the 1300’s between Orvieto and the powerful cities of Florence, Bologna, and Montepulciano (The Guelphs). It demonstrates how divided the towns were, among themselves and within town walls. 

I try to imagine the residents of the town in those long ago times, pawns living every day within what would seem to be the security of these massive fortress walls. But they probably did not feel safe at all, anywhere. 

Underneath the city of Orvieto, like many surrounding towns, weaves a maze of below ground tunnels. Some of these are quite evident and able to be visited - the Orvieto Underground for example is a main tourist highlight open to the public and definitely worth a visit. Even in the below ground levels under our own palazzo here in Orvieto we can see doorways that have been closed off, probably leading to other tunnels and properties. They say that many of these underground tunnels served the Orvieto nobility so that they could flee any murderous chaos in the city by escaping to the outer walls quickly. 

Gradually over the medieval period, town against town or town within town aggressions diminished, and larger entities and powers prevailed. Central Italian towns began to fall to the dominion of the heavily armed powers of Tuscany, or the Pope, or the various Duchies like Spoleto. The eastern and central parts of today’s Umbria seem to have been fairly stable, under the Duchy of Spoleto or the Papal States.

But the western part of Umbria, including Orvieto and Perugia, were often tossed back and forth between various powers so often that it was dizzying. 

Perugia, even though it was clearly Etruscan in origin due to its position west of the Tiber river, was swallowed up by the Duchy of Spoleto in the 12-13th centuries for a time. Perugia remained independent from the church for longer than Orvieto. 

The Church

Orvieto during the medieval period was always very tightly associated with the Roman Catholic Church, in part because of its strategic position and proximity to Rome. Orvieto was so closely associated with the Catholic Church that it is actually rather difficult to pinpoint the official date it became a part of the Papal States. Some say as early as the 800’s and some say as late as the 1400’s. What does seem to be clear is that when the Church was weak, Orvieto acted independently in its associations and alliances and battles, and when the Church was strong, Orvieto cooperated. 

Not only was Orvieto closely associated with the Church, it was one its key holdings, a papal city. Perugia and Viterbo were also papal cities. If you look at the list of cities in Europe which have been homes to the Pope, the list is short: Rome, Castel Gandolfo, Avignon, Orvieto, Perugia, Viterbo. These latter three are all Etruscan, not Umbrian, and share an important tie to the Catholic Church. 

By the end of the 1200’s, Orvieto had not just one but three papal palaces. It was an important center of academic studies, as evidenced by the presence of Thomas Aquinas as teacher before he was called away to work in Rome. The main papal palace in Orvieto stands proudly next to the stunning Duomo of Orvieto, which also has an important religious tie to Bolsena, in the province of Viterbo. 

In the 1200s, a priest was saying Mass in a church in Bolsena, and had grave doubts as to whether the presence of Christ existed in the host. At that moment, blood dripped from the host to the marble floor. The priest immediately went to Orvieto, where the Pope was residing, to tell him what had happened. The Pope sent a bishop to verify what had happened, and the bishop confirmed it via the blood stained marble floor. After confirming the event, the Pope decided to build an important cathedral in Orvieto. To this day, the festival of Corpus Domini is one of the most important holidays in Orvieto and in Bolsena, with long, elaborate processions occupying all of the streets in the towns. Some people even walk in pilgrimage between Bolsena and Orvieto, about 20 km apart.

The Orvietans are very proud, and rightfully so, of their extraordinarily beautiful medieval Duomo. It commands an important position and role in the city, and the colorful mosaics of its facade are so masterful they seem to be frescoes. The Orvieto Duomo was built well before the Sistine Chapel was painted, and Michelangelo studied the Chapel of San Brizio inside to prepare himself for painting the Sistine Chapel. While the exterior facade of the Orvieto Duomo is stunning, please do not miss visiting this staggeringly beautiful chapel. It will delight you as it delighted Michelangelo!

When the workers in our western Umbria village townhouse were reinforcing the walls, they found a quarry of dozens of objects hidden in one of the walls. One was a clay terracotta whistle in the shape of a bird, that still worked. I showed it to a master terracotta worker in the village, and he pulled out a book that describes the tradition of these whistles. He turned the pages to show me another whistle, almost identical to mine, from a Viterbese tradition of the 1200s. Needless to say, our clay bird whistle now occupies a prized position on the kitchen mantle. It shows a close tie between our village and Viterbo.

And so we can see that due to the presence and influence of the Church, Orvieto on the western edge of Umbria had very tight ties to the Lazio towns of Viterbo and Bolsena. 

The Church’s importance to the rest of Europe and to the former Etruscan lands is evidenced in roads of critical importance that pass through western Umbria and northern Lazio towards Rome: the Via Francigena connecting Rome to Canterbury, England, and the Via Romea Germanica connecting Rome to the northern Germanic countries. You can see that they closely skirt Orvieto, Viterbo, and Bolsena. 

You can walk these Vie Romee roads even today, the trails are usually well marked and well described on the internet or in books. Last year we walked the entire perimeter of Lake Bolsena, taking a slight detour one day to walk part of the Via Francigena. As I walked, I imagined pilgrims of all types, from peasants to kings, who had walked here over the centuries. For me, it added special magic to the scenic rolling countryside.

Below you can see a map of principal medieval roads to Rome in red passing between Orvieto and Bolsena. Note: map not to scale! (Orvieto to Bolsena is 20 km, and Orvieto to Assisi 90!). There are secondary medieval roads in purple that skirt Assisi, but the principal ones are further west.

Strangely, some maps as late as 1589 show Orvieto as a part of Tuscany. I’m not really sure what to make of this, and if anyone has information on how or why, I’d love to know. (See map below.) 

1800’s, Italian Unification, and onward

The 1800’s didn’t really help clear much up, until the end of the century when Unification finally arrived. 
In 1850, Pope Pio IX redivisoned central Italy, as you can see in the map below. The reddish zones are Roman and the yellowish Umbrian. We can see that Orvieto was considered a part of Lazio (the Circondario of Rome). Umbria held Perugia, Spoleto and Rieti. 

Then in 1860 Orvieto was moved to Umbria. Dizzy yet?

Rieti was later moved out of Umbria to Lazio. And not just Rieti - dozens of towns were shifted in or out of Lazio, Tuscany, Le Marche or Umbria in the 1900’s 

This is a very detailed history of Orvieto for anyone wanting to dive deeper: http://www.keytoumbria.com/Orvieto/History.html

The People 

Character

By now, you’ll have seen that Umbria was never a unified administrative region until very recently. A good chunk of it, the former Duchy of Spoleto, seems to have had more of a sense of unity than the western or northern parts like Orvieto or Perugia. 

Since I live outside the former Duchy of Spoleto, I am not an expert on the history or cultural influences there. I would love to hear from some historical experts (even armchair ones!) on how the eastern part of Umbria was impacted over the centuries, and how it impacted the regional culture there. 

I asked some other people who live in Umbria what they perceive to be the culture and identify of Umbrians today. I asked Italians native to Orvieto, native to Rome, especially those who lived outside Umbria in order that they have more perspective. I also spoke to Americans who have lived in various parts of Italy. Everyone spoke of town identities, not regional identities. 

When I first moved to Umbria, I was warmly “adopted” by a family in a small village of western Umbria. I was living alone and grateful for their warmth and fellowship. They had me over to their large, rambling ancient palazzo with a classic cortile (courtyard). A medieval stone crest of a serpent hung above the door. The degree to which those stone carvings had softened from exposure to the elements attested to its presence there for many centuries upon centuries. 

I went there for lunches and dinners, midweek, weekend, holidays, sometimes multiple days in a row. Fall, winter, and spring, the fireplace next to their kitchen table was always roaring. We drank their homemade wine in small tumbler glasses, ate their homemade wild boar prosciutto, drizzled their own olive oil over thinly sliced pieces of the traditionally salt-less bread of the region. Historically there was a tax on salt, so the people had adapted to bread without salt. We had long conversations that went long after we finished eating our lunch, or deep into the night well after dinner had been put away. I can’t tell you how much their friendship meant to me in that first year. Keep in mind that that was in a village in western Umbria.

In that same village, a few years back, a German woman came to live on her own in the countryside. She lived very simply, in the countryside, in a very basic shelter she shared with some animals, a couple of mules, a cat, a dog. They say she was autistic, she had no interest in human connections, and avoided people as much as possible. At a certain point she became quite ill and could not fend for herself. The villagers started bringing her food and medicine, tried to help however they could. When the German woman died, one of the villagers paid 3000 euro for her funeral. I am still touched when I think about the generosity of these Umbrian villagers for a complete outsider, a person who was not Umbrian, not Italian, and not a person they had strong connections or a particular fondness of. Instead, they took care of this woman on their own out of basic human goodness. 

I must also recount an anecdote that happened here in the city of Orvieto during COVID times. A family from Naples had moved to Orvieto, with the promise of work in an Orvieto restaurant. The father is a pizza cook and pastry chef. Unfortunately, the restaurant closed almost as soon as they arrived. The family was left with no work but rent and bills to pay. They could not return to Naples due to the expense of the move, so they were left struggling in Orvieto. Some residents of Orvieto found out about their plight, probably through school connections as the family has two teenage boys. The boys were growing fast and tall, and all of their clothes and shoes were too small. The Orvietans began collecting groceries for the family, and also began spreading the word that certain sized clothes and shoes were in need. Several families pitched in and brought not only groceries but food. The Caritas organization also activated, but that assistance is limited. On one delivery day, the mother of the family offered the delivery person a coffee, and when she opened the refrigerator to take out water, the delivery person saw that the refrigerator of this family with two teenage boys was completely bare. 

So with those experiences in mind, what I’m about to say about the inhabitants of the city of Orvieto  may be interpreted as harsh. Orvieto is not a small village, and despite its designation as a “city”, has about 20,000 people total, about 5,000 in the high town, the “centro storico” or historic center. 

And I want to preface this by saying that I am speaking generally, not about all people here as a whole. I am speaking about tendencies. I am using a combination of my own American perspectives as well as 30 years traveling and meeting thousands of people here on the length and breadth of the Italian peninsula.

The Orvietans have a certain reputation for being cold and distant if you are on the outside. Even people in the villages and towns surrounding Orvieto have this opinion of the Orvietans.  I attribute this to their long history dwelling for thousands of years on this cliff top city that was raided and invaded, that soared to lofty heights of art and culture and politics, that was reigned, and reined in, by the Pope. A people that knows well their ancient history, one which far predates the glory of the Roman empire. The importance of ancient Rome seems non existent here. 

In Italy, in general, the Italians have a street vibe that is very cool and distant. If they are walking alone, their faces are often expressionless. If they run into a friend or someone they are happy to see, their faces break into a festival of expressions, but otherwise they can be stony. Of course, there are all degrees of this stoniness. I would put Orvieto on the much stonier side of the scale. 

For this reason, I can easily pick out the Americans as I pass them on the street. The Americans have open faces, open to being greeted, open to new experiences, a smile that is practically already peeking out, a confidence of confronting new people. The American face is almost childlike in its openness, and I don’t mean that at all as an insult, but more as a way to describe the difference between how Americans and Italians compose themselves in public. It is a compliment to Americans because it shows their positivity and belief in hope and opportunity. These latter two elements are often lacking, sadly, in modern Italy.

I have lived now in Orvieto for one year with my fiance, who grew up here in Orvieto. When I walk with him in town, every few seconds to every minute or so, someone greets him or he greets them. The greetings range in gradations of familiarity, “Ciao!” to his friends he adores or people he enjoys, or “Salve!” as an intermediary salutation if he knows the person but not well, or “Buonasera” or “Buongiorno” for anyone who is his elder but not a family member. We can hardly have a full conversation between the two of us as we walk, so often are these encounters and salutations. 

I can contrast this quite starkly with my experiences walking in town alone - it literally feels like a different town when I walk without him. Clearly, I did not grow up here so I know far fewer people whom I can greet in a familiar way. The people I know, after a year, are his friends and various business owners I have interacted with on my own. For the most part, no one greets me if they pass me on the street. 

If I recognize someone, or if I decide it would be awkward to not say hello, I have a 1 in 5 chance the person will respond to me. It will depend on their personality, the weather, their mood, how loud I say it. I have a naturally soft spoken voice, but if I say it really really loud, they may be forced to respond. I simply cannot imagine trying to move to Orvieto as an outsider to make a new life, without some strong personal connection as I have, without having grown up here. I think it would be impossibly difficult. 

I was at the post office the other day in a little village near Orvieto and the woman in front of me in line was facing the opposite direction of the line, facing toward me. I said “Buongiorno”. She did not respond. This is typical. I asked my fiance why they don’t respond. He says if they don’t know you they won’t respond, even to a “buongiorno”, or that they may be trying to think of how they might know you, or they just don’t know how to process outsiders.

In speaking to and observing non-native residents here in Orvieto, I have heard they have had similar experiences. Some of these outsiders are American, some are British, some are even Italians from other parts of Italy. Even the Italians not from Orvieto say that Orvietans are chilly. To Orvietans, they are all outsiders. 

A couple of years ago we were at a dinner with an Orvietan who halfway through the dinner referred to me as a foreigner. When my friends said, Ellen is half Italian, her grandparents were born here, she has an Italian passport, she lives here, she speaks good Italian, he responded dismissively, “Per me, è straniera”, “To me, she’s a foreigner.”

There is a very strong expat community here in Orvieto, and I imagine that this is because it is difficult to tap into the Orvieto social scene. Americans and Brits who get together for meals or outings, speaking in English. 

Part of this of course is due to Italian language skills or lack thereof. Many expats come to Orvieto, but without the right language skills it can be hard to break into the Italian social circles. But the other part is a rigidness that will not accept outsiders. 

Or sadly, outsiders here are embraced in a false warmth due to their perceived origins from a wealthy country. Americans are treated differently than Moroccans. Brits are treated differently from Pakistanis. 

Looking beyond Orvieto for a moment, one American who lives here told me she notices a big difference between Orvietans and Spoletans. She says the Orvietans have a “broncio”, which means a frozen scowl that is hard to melt. But that in Spoleto, everyone greets one another even if they don’t know you. She thinks this may be because Orvieto is high on a fortress-like hill, while Spoleto is spread out on rolling countryside and more open. I think that all of this would create a very particular mentality among the town residents. Similarly, Tuscany is also much more open, it’s hills are generally softer and rolling, easier to secure, and easier to mix and merge with other peoples. I love this idea of how geography shapes local character.

I asked my fiance what made up the character of the Orvietans, and he answered immediately that it probably had ancient origins. Indeed, Orvieto is a natural fortress, and used as such for milenna from the Etruscans to as recently as the 20th century.

Orvietans are very focused on either its flowery Renaissance and very evident medieval history, or the significant Etruscan history. Remember that stunning Roman ruins can be found anywhere in Europe, but Etruscan ruins are only found in central Italy, and Orvieto was the capital of the Etruscans. The Roman remnants that exist here in Orvieto are neglected or hidden at best. 

Contrast that with Spoleto which has very prominent Roman architectural ruins. It’s almost as if as far as the Orvietans are concerned, the entire 600 years of ancient Roman presence in Orvieto didn't exist. For the Orvietans, Rome is just where you go to the centro commerciale, the shopping mall. Perhaps the defeat of the Orvietans by the Romans, and subsequent forced immigration to Bolsena, was so humiliating, they wanted to remove it from their psyche. 

Most shopkeepers in Orvieto are accustomed to tourists as Orvieto gets some day trippers from Rome, Florence, and the surrounding countryside. There is a chilly formality in the stores on the part of the shopkeepers. Perhaps it is a fear of not speaking English well to the tourists, or understanding their needs, in order to best help them. I can only hope this is the reason. 

My fiance says that 15 years ago, most shopkeepers were cold to outsiders, but that lately perhaps only 30% of the shopkeepers are frigid. He believes something is changing. So that is a positive sign!

My sister-in-law is half Tuscan and half Sardinian, grew up until she was 16 in Sardinia and has lived since then in Umbria. She has a fairly good understanding of the three cultures. She recounted to me that even up until 30 years ago here in western Umbria and southern Tuscany, the contadini men (farmers) ate together alone at the table. The women, instead, ate standing up while they served the seated men like princes. 

I’m curious to know if this was true in eastern Umbria - if anyone knows, please let me know!

She says women were viewed in Tuscany and Umbria as bad luck as soon as they are born because they will marry and abandon the family. The father must provide a dowry or pay for them to learn some skill, while the men are considered the labor force which earns money. Women in Umbria did not have input on family decision making even though they worked like oxen, and were not recognized any economic powers in their own right. God forbid they were in an unhappy marriage, because they would be simply out of luck. 

My sister-in-law contrasts the Umbrian experience with Sardinia, where the woman are held in great consideration. Traditionally, Sardinian women held down the fort while the men went off for months to pasture the sheep. The women stayed at home with the children and sold cheese and wool. The economy of the Sardinian family was handled by the women. This culture has remained even today as evidenced in a strong respect for the role of the woman in the family. The worst insult you can give a Sard, much worse than to people in other regions, is: you are the son of a w****!

Turning back to the Church influence, an Umbrian friend who grew up in Orvieto pointed out that in Orvieto, almost wherever you are in town, you can see some piece of the facade or roof or spires of the Duomo. She says that when she was a child, at the end of catechism class, the priest would say to the children, “Ok children, class is over, go home, and be good. Remember, the Duomo is watching you!”

This would certainly have contributed to the mentality of the people, that the church is always watching and controlling them. Orvieto always had this sense of the Papal and Church presence. Contrast that with a town like Spoleto where the duomo is at the base of the hill, and isn’t “watching” the children. And in Spoleto, even though they eventually became part of the Papal States, they had a long history of being a separate Duchy. 

Our friend also pointed out that Orvieto has no natural source of water, unlike many nearby towns. Spoleto, on the other hand, has many sources of water such as the Fonti del Clitunno. In fact, in Orvieto it was the Church by command of Pope Clement VII that built the Pozzo di San Patrizio. This “Well of Saint Patrick” guaranteed a regular supply of water to Orvieto via a stone double helix of spiral staircases used by mules to carry water up to the city. It is a miracle of medieval engineering, for the mules ascending never meet the mules descending due to the double helix structure. This lack of a natural source of water could have been chronically worrisome to the people and provide an anxiety and general lack of tranquillity in the local character.

I also spoke to my other Tuscan sister-in-law, who said in Tuscany there is not this strong influence or sense of the Church. She said that Tuscany is much more open to other ideas and points of view. She pointed out that the Church attempted to halt any type of progress, as evidenced in Oscurantismo, “Obscurantism”. Oscurantismo, meaning “obscuring”, or “not permitting light”, is the opposite of the Enlightenment and of the Renaissance. It’s a way of handling topics by confusing them with many various arguments so that it is impossible to challenge the status quo. She says that while in Umbria there was this repression via Oscurantismo, Florence in Tuscany developed the flowering splendor of the Renaissance.

Recently here in Orvieto they discovered a room that had been hidden for centuries, an Oratorio, or small chapel. And before it was an Oratorio, it had been used by the Inquisition. You can visit this chapel with a guide, and you can still see the benches where the Inquisition Judges sat in the 1500’s. 

My sister-in-law also pointed out that since Umbria has no contact with the sea, it is isolated and therefore has little contact with outside influences. It is relatively easy to control, like a prisoner in a windowless room. I found this interesting because I have a Calabrian friend, Caterina, who said something similar to me, not about Umbria, many years ago. 

Caterina said that in Calabria, there are many towns on the sea that had constant contact with peoples of other cultures and countries. And in these seaside towns, the mentality is very progressive, very open to all kinds of people.

Here in Umbria, landlocked as it is, the people’s mindset has not shifted much over the centuries. My fiance, who is quite open minded by comparison, is half Tuscan half Umbrian. He recently did a dna test on his relations to peoples of the last 500-1000 years. It showed that he was more than 98%, with almost all of that from Tuscany and Umbria. Contrast this with a city like Rome, where a surprisingly low portion of the population is actually 100% Roman. Or northern Italy where there was a great deal of mixing between northeast and northwest, as well as mixing from the far south.

Education: this is also a key element. Consider that even today here in Umbria there are people in their 60’s who have 3rd grade or 5th grade educations, especially in the small villages. Also, you would be hard pressed to find anyone in the villages with even one degree. You could maybe come up with someone, but it would be tricky and certainly not the norm.

Dogs

As Ghandi said, “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” So let’s now talk about dogs in Umbria. 

I’m a dog lover. I have had a dog as a companion through long stretches of my life. I donate monthly to the SPCA. We have a giant, boisterous, poorly behaved and very well loved rescue dog who lives with us here in Orvieto. We take him into the countryside every morning to a huge fenced property where he can run free with another dog and be spoiled all day long by his human nonno (grandfather). 

Legally, dogs are treated as property in western Umbria. I have assessed that here in western Umbria there are three castes of dogs. First, there are companion dogs, which may be purebred or mutt, but are treated as members of the family. This falls in line with the typical American attitude towards dogs. 

Second, there are guard dogs, who may be treated well but live alone at a property or vacation house. They also may live in a cage. I remember well when a beautiful white dog escaped his caged life to come play with my friend’s happy countryside dogs. Eventually his owner tracked him down and he had to go back and there was nothing we could do. The owner, a local well known baker, provided food and water and shelter, and it didn’t matter that the dog lived alone in a cage. There was nothing we could do. By the way, I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the baker’s bread is terrible. Terrible person, terrible bread.

And third, there are wild boar hunting dogs. This final caste of dogs also has a brutal life. They live most of the year in cages. When hunting season comes around, September through January, they have a taste of freedom on Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays. For a week prior to their release into the countryside and forests, they are starved so that they are hungry for the hunt. If they don’t perform well on the hunt, they will be further starved or abused. 

There are some exceptions like truffle dogs, who are usually treated fairly well by their owners, as long as they are not stolen by rival truffle hunters or killed to prevent the rival hunter from taking the truffles the other hunter wants.

Even the first caste of dogs, companion dogs, is not in the clear. If a neighbor decides the dog barks too much, or if the dog, god forbid, gets loose and destroys property (eats the neighbor’s chickens, jumps up on someone), they may decide to throw a meatball with poison in the dog’s yard. 

I would never, ever, leave our dog out in our garden alone, or even off leash in the garden with me, for this reason. A main road passes along the back of the garden wall and anyone could throw poisoned meat in our garden. This happened in Orvieto just two years ago. When people reference it here, no one is surprised, no one is horrified. It’s just something that happens now and then. 

I can’t make these things up. The truth is crazier than fiction.

And so, I take permission from Ghandi to judge these people’s moral progress. 

Of course, not everyone here is “cattivo”, or wicked. I have experienced extraordinary hospitality by some families, even before I had my own Umbrian-Tuscan family. Once you have pierced that distant exterior, the people are very warm and welcoming. It’s a hard shell, like that petrified seashell from millions of years ago. 

Food in western Umbria

Let’s talk a moment about food. The food in Orvieto is much more similar to northern Lazio, like Viterbo, and southern Tuscany, like Radicofani or Abbazia San Salvatore. One of Orvieto’s traditional pastas is “umbrichelli”, which is a long hand rolled pasta similar to tagliolini but irregular due to its hand rolled process. In Tuscany, the same pasta is called “pici”. Perugia also has umbrichelli, but they are lesser known in other parts of Umbria. 

Orvieto also has a pasta making tradition similar to the nonna’s (grandmothers) of Lazio. I spoke to the owner and head pasta maker of a fresh pasta shop here in Orvieto. She says that the pasta tradition here is much more similar to Lazio than to the rest of Umbria. 

Here in western Umbria we have not only black truffles but also prized white truffles. White truffles are usually thought of as coming from Piemonte in northern Italy. Our family has our own private white truffle forest reserve. 

Other local food traditions include the gathering of wild grown vegetables and herbs. If you ask people about the traditions of Umbrian food, many locals will point out that Umbria doesn’t have the same unified culture of gastronomy as some of the other Italian regions. Others will tell you that until recently the Umbrians were very poor, and that their cuisine still reflects this. Think about “pane pomodoro”, which is bread with just the essence of tomato, a tomato dragged over the top, a bit of oil and salt. Imagine the poverty, they say, when they had to share a tomato among 10 people in the family. 

Think also about the pervasive traditions of wild food gathering that still exist. “Cardi” or “cardoons” are gathered and used in a local version of lasagna here in western Umbria. “Finochietto” fronds (wild fennel), are gathered and made into a pesto without basil but using almonds. “Ortica” (stinging nettle) is used as a pasta sauce. The nettle leaves are first collected with gloves, then soaked in water to remove the stinging, then cooked and tossed with pasta. I noticed just this morning, April 8, that the wild fennel is arriving right next to the ortica! These gathered food ingredients reflect the people’s ability to survive over the centuries by living off the land, despite fluctuating food supplies and fly by night governing powers. 

Fortunately, there was also a vast supply of wild boar and other fauna. The wild boar that roam today in central Italy are actually not Italian; they were imported in the 1970’s per the request of the hunters. Prior to that, the Italian wild boar was plentiful, however, if much a smaller breed. 

One delightful pasta dish is the Carbonara al tartufo - just what it sounds like, Roman carbonara with the addition of black truffle, truly delicious. 

The food is much more similar between Orvieto, Viterbo, and also Perugia than Orvieto to other Umbrian towns. All these towns are on the west side of the Tiber river. 

Conclusion

And so, turning to the original question, what is Umbria’s regional identity? And how does it vary culturally within the Umbrian borders?

First, I really can only speak well to western Umbria as I live here and not in the classic central or eastern parts of Umbria. So this article needs supplementing with many more expert opinions from those areas.

Second, I am not sugar coating anything. People who didn’t grow up in Italy have a lot of dreamy views about Italy, about the scenery and the views and the food and the people. I know this because even though I am half-Italian, I grew up in American and had this same dreamy, idealistic view of Italy. And part of it is true. But no place is heaven on earth, and to believe that is folly. It’s important to see the full picture. 

Third, I hope the more difficult aspects are indeed changing, like the cold attitudes of shopkeepers that my fiance believes are melting over the years with time and progress. I don’t know what to do about the suffering of dogs, but I try in my own ways whenever possible. 

This is a complex, beautiful place, full of deep history, hidden cultures, and sad contradictions. Though Orvieto is tied to the rest of Umbria, in some ways it’s a land apart. At times, my own place here seems much the same. Because even as I struggle to feel part of Orvieto, I am deepening relationships and creating a home. My life, my roots, are now tied to this ancient city and so I love it, even with its complications.

Ellen Craig is co-founder of Umbria Above, offering boutique accommodations paired with exclusive experiences in the heart of central Italy. She is working on a book series about her life in Italy, having realized her childhood dream of returning to the land of her grandparents.

Want more insights into Umbria, Italy, and beyond? Sign up for the Grapevine, my once-a-month newsletter, and you’ll get wanderlust stories, travel tips, and even recipes right in your email inbox! Pus, as a special welcome gift, I’ll send you an e-copy of my bestselling novel, Santa Lucia. Imagine! In just a few keystrokes, you can be plunged into the heart of Italy.