GUBBIO
Gubbio is
renowned for its exceptional richness of monuments and the
fascination of its medieval appearance, which it has preserved,
unaltered over the centuries.
There’s an annual and
traditional Eugubino folklore called the Corsa dei Ceri (Race
of the Candles) (which has Mount Ingino, 827 metres in height,
as its Meta; and where the Cathedral of Saint Ubaldo, patron
of the City, is situated) as well as the Palio della balestra
(archery competition).
It was known in ancient times as Iguvium
(then later Eugubium and Aggobbio). It is an important City
of Umbria, in alliance with the Romans since the beginning
of the 3rd Century BC. After the social war, it became a municipality
and ascribed to the Crustumina clan for its fidelity. All
its archaeological remains date back to Roman times. The Theatre,
built around the middle of the 1st Century AD, contains two
series of arcades. The so called Mausoleum is made up of a
circular building on a square podium; in its interior, a room
is covered with a barrel vault. The remains of the well know
ancient Temple of Giove Appennino, have still not been identified.
The City, impoverished during the high medieval times, mainly
due to the wars between the Goths, Longobards and Byzantines,
sent many men to the first crusades at the end of the 11th
Century. It then became a more heavily populated Commune,
firmly Guelph during the 13th Century. Various Guelph cities
in Umbria and Tuscany were given to the Podestà and
Captains of the populous (including to the Gabrielli from
Florence). It was reclaimed by Albornoz as Church property
around 1353. The city rebelled in 1376 and in 1384 and was
then given over to Antonio di Montefeltro, noble of Urbino.
In this way, it became part of the Duchy of Urbino until 1631
when it returned to property of the Papal State after the
extinction of the Della Rovere, successors in 1508 of the
Montefeltro Family.
Its urbanistic look is characterized by a line of parallel
roads on different and steep levels, which all lead to monumental
buildings and dark stoned houses containing arched mullioned
windows, window posts and ledges in a medieval style: overall
giving an unmistakable look to the City. The existence of
houses with medieval origins is characterized in the urban
buildings of the small “Porta del Morto,” (Dead
Door), with the threshold approximately 70 cm from the road
level; maybe once used to allow entry and exit to coffins.
Abbeys and churches from the Paleo-Christian and proto-Romanesque
periods were destroyed by the Hungarians in 917. The oldest
surviving monuments are the Church of San Giovanni Battista
(St. John the Baptist) from the 11th Century, reconstructed
in the 13th Century and gravely damaged by the 1997 earthquake,
the Cathedral built at the beginning of the 13th Century and
incorporating part of an ancient construction containing a
single nave with a sloping roof, supported by squared stone
slender pointed arches (a typical system of cover used in
Eugubine churches), the Church of San Francesco, erected by
Friar Bevignate of Perugia (1259-1292) on the spot where the
Draper’s shop of the Spadalonga family was positioned,
and with high naves, polygonal apses stressed by slender pilaster
strips and beautiful unfinished facades.
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