Orvieto | Medieval Town, Etruscan Ruins & Wine Region | Britannica (original) (raw)

Orvieto, town, Umbria regione, central Italy. The town is situated atop an isolated rock 640 feet (195 m) above the junction of the Paglia and Chiana rivers. An Etruscan and later a Roman city (in late Roman times it was called Urbs Vetus, from which its Italian name is derived), Orvieto was the seat of a Lombard duchy and of a Tuscan countship before becoming an independent commune in the 12th century. After much civil conflict and strife with neighbouring cities, the town passed under the dominion of the papacy in 1448.

Orvieto’s Gothic cathedral, which is one of the most celebrated in Italy, was begun in 1290 to commemorate the miracle at Bolsena, a town situated just to the southwest, where in 1263 a priest witnessed the miraculous appearance of drops of blood on a Host that he was consecrating; a large silver shrine in the Cappella (chapel) del Corporale contains the Holy Corporal (linen altar cloth) from Bolsena. The cathedral’s west facade, a fine polychrome monument of richly sculptured marble, is divided into three gables with intervening pinnacles. The interior of the building is richly decorated with the work of a number of medieval sculptors and painters, notably the frescoes by Luca Signorelli and Fra Angelico in the Cappella Nuova. Many 16th-century sculptures adorn the cathedral, which was completed in 1580.

The town’s many fine 13th-century houses and palaces include the episcopal palace, the Palazzo del Popolo, and the Palazzo dei Papi, the last of which contains a civic museum with many works of art and a collection of antiquities from the nearby Etruscan necropolis of Volsinii. Also notable architecturally are the churches of San Andrea (11th–12th century) and San Domenico (1233–64); the old fortress (1364), which has been converted into public gardens; and the disused St. Patrick’s Well, or Pozzo di San Patrizio (1527–40). A major civil-engineering program to consolidate the foundations of the city’s buildings was undertaken following subsidence and landslides during the 1970s.

Orvieto is an agricultural centre noted for its white wines, especially a traditional delicate, semisweet variety aged in tufa cliffs and a more recent dry variety. The town’s handicraft industries produce wrought iron, ceramics, and lace. Orvieto is linked to Rome and Florence (via Arezzo) by rail and road. Pop. (2006 est.) mun., 20,909.