Introduction to Spoleto

63km (39 miles) SE of Perugia; 212km (132 miles) SE of Florence; 126km (78 miles) N of Rome

Spoleto is a split-level town, a sleepy repository of Roman ruins and medieval buildings terraced from the valley floor up a high hill backed by the deep-green forested slopes of a sacred mountain. It springs dramatically to life toward the end of June when the festival hits town. Dreamed up in 1958 by the Italian-American composer Gian Carlo Menotti, the Spoleto Festival (formerly known as the Festival dei Due Mondi/Festival of Two Worlds) brings heavy-duty culture to Spoleto in the form of music, dance, and theater showcased by premier Italian and international performers. The celebration of modern works, both conservative and experimental, draws thousands of visitors annually.

Although it often seems to revolve around it, Spoleto doesn't begin and end with the festival. A forgotten small city in the 1950s when Menotti chose it as the festival site, Spoleto started out as a Bronze Age Umbri settlement. And as a Roman town in the 3rd century B.C., it repelled the fierce invader Hannibal. Strategically situated on the ancient Via Flaminia from Rome to the late imperial capital of Ravenna, Spoleto became the stronghold of many powers during the Dark Ages. The Lombards made it the capital of their empire in the 8th century A.D., and the duke they installed here governed all of Umbria and much of the rest of central Italy. At the turn of the 12th century, Spoleto fell into papal hands, and its twilight began.

In the 12th century, Spoleto was the birthplace of Alberto Sotio, the earliest known Umbrian painter, and Lo Spagna, a pupil of Perugino. But the city's main nonmusical treasures are Roman and medieval. Though nothing other than the Duomo, containing Filippo Lippi's last fresco cycle, and the graceful Ponte delle Torri really stands out, the town as a whole makes for a good day's diversion.