Italy: a visit to Civita di Bagnoregio
Between the Tevere River and Bolsena lake, in the green latium
countryside, on the top of a clay hill, rises the small town
"Civita di Bagnoregio".
Civita appears isolated on a cliff spur to dominate the around
valley and, thanks to this isolation, the town shows intact its
medieval architectonical structure.
Joined to Bagnoregio, and to the world, through only one bridge,
Civita appears in an unreal isolation due to landslip series and
downfall of argillaceous ground on which the entire town is
built and that is still in danger.
The History of Civita and Bagnoregio links each to other and the
legend wants that Longobardi's king Desiderio named the city
Bagnoregium after he was there to cure serious disease with
local thermal water (Bagnoregio is a word composed by bagno
(means: bath) and regio (regal, king)).
The urban planning of the city is of Etruscan origin,
constituted from ortogonal alleys as Etruscan and later roman
use, while the entire architectonic has medioeval and
rinascimentale styles. Several sculptures of medieval age,
pertaining to buildings destroyed for continuous landslips are
inglobated on the arc and in the wall to the sides of town
access gate.
The heart of the village of Civita is constituted from San
Donato square, on which the cathedral dome rises. The cathedral
was built in centuries VII - VIII, over a more ancient pagan
temple. The building was widened in the XI XII when a bell tower
was built too. In origin the cathedral had to be faced from a
porch, today destroyed, like us testifies the rests of two
columns placed the facade. Inside, the building, has three naves
splitted by columns of medieval origin.
Always in San Donato square, on the left of the bell tower,
there is a passage that leads to the building of medieval jails,
while on the southern side of the square we have "Via della
Maestà" where we can see fragments of typical longobard
sculptures. At the end of this road there were the gate of the
Maestà, collapsed with the church of "Santa Maria della Maestà"
after a landslip in 1695. From there, a narrow lane came down to
the water sources of Civita, in particular to source
of the Columns and in the zone called "dell'Uncino" (hook),
where, for the legend, was located the thermal source from which
Bagnoregium name derived.
About the author:
Davide Farace is the owner of www.guidaditalia.com an
italian guide for travellers.
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