Spello climbs the southern slope of Monte Subasio between Assisi and Foligno, a stone-built Umbrian hill town of steep stone lanes, flower-filled doorways and arches. Behind the pretty streets lies a remarkable past: Roman gates and walls from the age of Augustus, a villa floored with ancient mosaics and a chapel painted by Pinturicchio.
Spello at a glance
Spello belongs to the province of Perugia in Umbria and has about 8,200 inhabitants. It lies roughly 10 kilometres from Assisi and overlooks the plain towards Perugia. The town is a member of I Borghi più belli d’Italia, the association of the most beautiful villages in Italy.
In Roman times it was Hispellum, which became a colony under Augustus as Colonia Iulia Hispellum. A sanctuary of Venus outside the town was first given monumental form in the 2nd to 1st century BC, and the Palazzo Comunale still keeps the Rescript of Constantine, an inscription from around 333–337 AD that calls the town “faithful to the Flavians”.
Roman walls and gates: Porta Venere and Porta Consolare
Spello’s Augustan walls run for almost two kilometres, with gates, posterns and projecting towers, and rank among the best-preserved walls of their age in Italy. The most striking gate is Porta Venere, an Augustan gateway shaped like a triumphal arch, flanked by the two tall twelve-sided Towers of Propertius, built of local pink and white limestone. The towers are thought to be medieval, and visitors can climb inside to a terrace with views over the town.
Porta Consolare, from the 1st century BC, is where the Roman road Via Flaminia entered the town through its three passages.
The Villa of Mosaics
In July 2005 an Imperial-age Roman villa came to light in the Sant’Anna district. Its central sector covers about 500 square metres, and ten of its twenty rooms still have their mosaic floors, along with traces of frescoes and painted plaster. Today the Villa of Mosaics is a multimedia museum, with 3D reconstructions of the rooms and virtual reality that show how the house looked when it was lived in. It is at Via Paolina Schicchi Fagotti 7.
Pinturicchio’s Baglioni Chapel
The Church of Santa Maria Maggiore, founded in the 11th–12th century with a façade from 1644, holds Spello’s greatest artistic treasure. In 1500 Troilo Baglioni commissioned Pinturicchio to decorate a chapel, and the frescoes he painted in 1501 earned it the name Cappella Bella, the beautiful chapel. The scenes include the Annunciation, the Nativity with the Adoration of the Shepherds and the Dispute of Jesus among the Doctors, with Sibyls in the vault. Look for the artist’s self-portrait and the Deruta majolica floor from 1566.
The same church has two works by Perugino dated 1521, flanking the apse, and the Church of Sant’Andrea holds a large panel by Pinturicchio from 1508. The official cultural heritage guide covers these and the town’s art gallery in the Palazzo dei Canonici.
The Infiorate di Spello
Once a year Spello turns its streets into a gallery of flowers. For the feast of Corpus Christi, teams of arrangers work through the night to lay about 1,500 metres of carpets and pictures made only from plant material, using millions of petals. Everything is ready by 9 a.m., when the procession passes over the carpets.
The tradition began in the early 20th century. Around 1930, the story goes, a woman made a simple floral figure on the road with broom and fennel; neighbours admired it and copied it, and the designs grew larger and more elaborate year after year. The date follows the church calendar, so check the explanation of the Infiorate tradition and the year’s programme before you travel.
Planning a walk in Spello
Spello is best explored on foot, linking the gates, Santa Maria Maggiore and the lanes between them. Wear comfortable shoes for the steep stone streets. Combine the town with Assisi on the same slope of Monte Subasio, and leave time to wander: the flower pots on doorsteps and balconies make the lanes beautiful even outside festival season.
For other Italian journeys, see the Apennine Colossus near Florence and Matera and the Sassi.
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