45km (27 miles) W of Todi; 87km (54 miles) W of Spoleto; 86km (52 miles) SW of Perugia; 152km (91 miles) S of Florence; 121km (73 miles) N of Rome
The Paglia and Tiber rivers have spent eons washing away most of the volcanic layer of porous tufa that once covered the area around Orvieto. But they left a plug of it jutting some 315m (1,033 ft.) above the plain, and its sheer walls are so defensible humans have been scurrying about atop it for thousands of years. The Etruscans probably called the city they inherited from Bronze and Iron Age tribes here Velzna (some scholars render it Volsinii), a major player in the Etruscan confederation of 12 cities and perhaps its religious center.
It was a close enough threat to the Romans that they attacked and leveled it in 265 B.C., driving the Etruscans to settle on the shores of nearby Lake Bolsena. The Romans built a port on the Tiber to ship home a steady supply of the famous wine produced in the area -- still much in demand today as Orvieto Classico, one of Italy's finest whites. As a medieval comune, the city expanded its empire in all directions until the Black Death decimated the population in the 14th century. Soon after, Orvieto became part of the Papal States and a home away from home to some 32 popes.
The city seems not so much to rise as to grow out of the flat top of its butte. The buildings are made from blocks of the same tufa on which Orvieto rests, giving the disquieting feeling that the town evolved here of its own volition. A taciturn, solemn, almost cold feeling emanates from its stony walls, and the streets nearly always turn at right angles, confounding your senses of direction and navigation. It's as if, somehow, Orvieto resents the humans who have overrun it. Of course, a goodly dose of wine with lunch can make the whole place seem very friendly indeed, and the stoniness is greatly relieved by the massive Duomo rising head and shoulders above the rest of the town, its glittering mosaic facade visible for miles around.
