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GUBBIO
39km (24 miles) NE of Perugia; 170km (105 miles) SE of
Florence; 200km (124 miles) N of
Rome.
The city of Gubbio can claim to
have been inhabited for many
thousands of years. Archaeologists
have found traces of both
Neanderthals and early Homo
sapiens in and around the region
of Gubbio. More recent history
records the establishment of the
city in the third century BC by
the Umbri tribes, who started out
on the valley floor, and as the
years crept by, extended their
village to the hill side. They
allied themselves with the
Etruscans, then with the
encroaching Romans, and, as the
Roman municipium Iguvium, lived
wholly on the valley floor.
Gubbio is a down to earth Italian city. Its buildings are in
the main grim fortresses of stone.
It lies at the bottom of a
mountain, and then up part of it.
The city is proud of its patron
saint, medieval palaces, and
homespun school of painting. It is
very aware of its ingrained
history and as a testament to this
they have their annual noisy and colourful
traditional festivals. At first
look Gubbio seems to be a flat
city situated in a broad valley of
farmland, but once you get past
the romantic ruins of its Roman
theater just below the panoramic
terrace of its main piazza, and
make your way up the slopes of its
unkempt hill, past the temple of
the city's patron saint, St.
Ubaldo, to the sparse remains of
its medieval mountaintop fortress,
and you'll see what gives Gubbio
its desolate border-town feeling.
It's at the edge of a sea of
mountains, wood-covered
snow-capped Apennines that stream
back for dozens of miles, a wild
landscape that seems incongruous
so near to a quaint central
Italian hill town.
Under the rule of the Romans Gubbio was reasonably
prosperous. In fact it managed to
remain an autonomous city right in
the middle of the Roman Etruscan
Empire. The sacking and pillage of
the dark ages affected Gubbio
also, but the eleventh century saw
it become a busy and enterprising
trade centre. It came under threat
from Barbarosa in 1155 but was
saved by its wise bishop, Umbaldo,
whome the city sanctified after
his death. The people of medieval
Gubbio added defensive walls
around the city, and from the
protection of these fortresses,
went about their Umbrian ways of
attacking their neighbours.
Saint Francis of Assisi was a welcome visitor to the city, as
was his monastic order. This was
because of the way Saint Francis
assisted the town’s people in
its problem with a marauding wolf.
He got the wolf to stop its deadly
attacks on the condition that the
people of the town would feed it
regularly.
In the early fourtheenth century, Gubbio built its monumental
center and the best of its
palaces. In 1387, began the
benevolent reign of the Urbino
counts of Monteferalto. During
this time, Gubbio became famous
for the high-quality glazed
ceramics and majolica made in its
workshops, especially that of
Maestro Giorgio Andreoli (ca.
1465-1552), a trendsetter and one
of the world's greatest masters of
the craft. After the Monteferalto
line petered out in the early 16th
century, the city found itself
under the stifling rule of the
Papal States. It reemerged during
the Italian unification in the
1860s.
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