Last Tuesday we went to a town near us called Bevagna. There had been some unusually cold weather for May, so as we bounced along atrocious Umbrian back roads in bright sunshine, through the vineyards, olive groves and spring wildflowers of the Martani Hills, we could see fresh snow on the Apennine peaks across the valley.
Bevagna sits on the north-eastern side of the Colli Martani where the hills come down to what is now a fertile plain, but which, before being drained in the Middle Ages, was marshland. Across the valley are the towns of Spello and Assisi. Like many towns here Bevagna has exceedingly ancient pre-Roman beginnings, but in Roman times it was called Mevania and lay on the western branch of a principal military road, the Via Flaminia, the route of which still runs through the town.
After the end of the Roman period, being on the Via Flaminia ceased to mean that you were on the route by which the legions marched north, but rather that you were now on the route by which invading armies marched south (more on that one day). So Bevagna would have seen Goths and Lombards in the Dark Ages. In the early Middle Ages it was part of the Lombard Duchy of Spoleto, and in the later Middle Ages it was on the route of several campaigns by the Hohenstaufen Emperors in the struggles between Papacy and Empire (whose factions were the Guelphs and Ghibellines, respectively).
During some of these later incursions, the town was largely destroyed a couple of times, so although there are a few Roman remains, including some temple pillars which survived through being incorporated into a medieval building, these days the general air of Bevagna is of the (middle) Middle Ages. It sits within a medieval town wall, the River Clitunno (the Clitumnus of the ancients) flows past, and you enter through one of the town gates. It’s very pretty, and deservedly a member of I Borghi Più Belli d’Italia.
If you enter the town from the south you cross a bridge over the Clitunno and there below is a weir which creates a reservoir for what Lou identified as a public laundry, surrounded on two sides by a stone wall with a flat top on which to pound the clothes.
The main piazza is particularly attractive, surrounded by several medieval buildings including two 12th Century Romanesque churches – both built by a local master craftsman by the name of Binello – and a Gothic town hall from the 13th Century. All were damaged in the 1997 earthquake which so badly damaged the Basilica of Saint Francis at Assisi, but have now been restored. On the front of the church of San Silvestro is a stone bearing an inscription saying (I think; medieval Latin is not my strong point) that the church was commissioned in AD 1195 by the Emperor Henry, and built by Binello.
The Henry in question would have been the Emperor Henry VI Hohenstaufen, son of Frederick Barbarossa and father of Frederick II “Stupor Mundi, the wonder of the world”, who was the child of Henry’s marriage to Constance de Hauteville of Sicily. I mentioned Constance in the post on the Normans in Sicily.
San Silvestro isn’t always open, but if it is you should definitely have a look inside. It is one of the most beautiful little Romanesque churches I have seen (NB: in architecture, “Romanesque” has nothing to do with the Romans, and “Gothic” has nothing to do with the Goths.)
Opposite San Silvestro is the church of San Michele Arcangelo which has around the door some wonderful carvings of the eponymous archangel taking on the devil in single combat. The stone carvings are original; the wood carvings are relatively modern, being a mere 500 years old.
Not far from Assisi, Bevagna is the location where St Francis is supposed to have preached his famous sermon to the birds. There is a church dedicated to the saint elsewhere in the town – at some point (presumably either in the 17th or the 18th century) the interior was comprehensively renovated (or comprehensively ruined, depending on your taste) in the baroque style.
Apart from its being historic and beautiful, good reasons to visit Bevagna are its gastronomy and oenology. Although the wines of this part of Umbria are not particularly famous, apart from the Sagrantino of Montefalco, they are pleasant and good value. The reds are mostly based on the Sangiovese grape, while the whites, which are very good, are made from a grape called Grechetto which I have not seen a lot elsewhere in Italy. I have read that Grechetto was the grape used to make wine round here in antiquity, but I am not sure of the authenticity of the claim.
There are some good restaurants here. I have tried a couple, but the one we will come back to is “Antiche Sere” in Piazza Garibaldi. It is a small trattoria with a limited menu, but the food is very good and made from seasonal ingredients, which is as you would expect, since it is affiliated with the Slow Food Movement . Last time we visited, in October last year, I had an omelette with black truffle and Lou had pasta with pumpkin. This time I had fresh mozzarella with Cantabrian anchovies and Lou had strangozzi pasta with freshly-gathered wild asparagus, which is much thinner than the cultivated stuff. You see people gathering it at this time of year beside the roads.
Just down the road from Bevagna is a town called Cannara which is famous for its strongly flavoured onions. The picture below is of a poster for a shop in Cannara which sells them, and which was on display in the Antiche Sere. In translation, it reads “there are more tears in a Cannara onion than in a hundred love stories”.
Note: I updated this post in June 2022 to include the interior shot of the church of San Silvestro.