Frommer's Review
While Emperor Charles V was sacking Rome in 1527, the Medici Pope Clement VII took advantage of a dark night and the disguise of a fruit vendor to sneak out of his besieged Roman fortress and scurry up to Orvieto. Convinced that the emperor would follow him, Clement set about fortifying his position.
Orvieto's main military problem throughout history has been a lack of water. Clement hired Antonio Sangallo the Younger to dig a new well that would ensure an abundant supply in case the pope should have to ride out another siege. Sangallo set about sinking a shaft into the tufa at the lowest end of town. His design was unique: He equipped the well with a pair of wide spiral staircases, lit by 72 internal windows, forming a double helix so that mule-drawn carts could descend on one ramp and come back up the other without colliding.
Although Clement and Charles V reconciled in 1530, the digging continued. Eventually, workers did strike water -- almost 10 years later, at which point Clement was dead and the purpose moot. The shaft was nicknamed St. Patrick's Well when some knucklehead suggested that it vaguely resembled the cave into which the Irish saint was wont to withdraw and pray. What you get for descending the 248 steps is a close-up view of that elusive water, a good echo, and the sheer pleasure of climbing another 248 steps to get out.
In a small park just north of the well are the moss-covered foundation, the staircase, and a few column bases of the so-called Tempio di Belvedere, an Etruscan religious building from the early 5th century B.C. It miraculously never had a Roman temple or Christian church grafted onto it, as most temples throughout Tuscany and Umbria did. (Both the Romans and the early Christians recycled holy sites regularly, just changing the name of the honored divinity.)
South of the well, off Piazza Cahen, is a large millstone old men use as a card table. It lies next to a tall gatehouse that, aside from a few of the thicker defensive walls, is all that remains of the 1364 Albornoz Fortress. The remnants are laid out as a public park with fine views of the valley beyond Orvieto's wall.
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