Between the Tevere stream and Bolsena lake, in the green latium countryside, on the head of a clay hill, rises the tiny city’Civita di Bagnoregio’.
Civita appears isolated on a cliff spur to reign supreme over the around valley and, thanks to this isolation, the town shows intact its medieval architectonical structure.
Joined to Bagnoregio, and to the world, thru only one bridge, Civita appears in an unreal isolation due to landslip series and downfall of argillaceous ground on which the whole town is built and that is still at risk.
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 town is of Etruscan origin, constituted from ortogonal alleys as Etruscan and later roman use, while the whole architectonic has medioeval and rinascimentale styles. Many sculptures of medieval age, pertaining to buildings devastated 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, that the cathedral dome rises. The cathedral was built in centuries VII – VIII, over a more traditional pagan church. The building was dilated in the XI XII when a bell tower was built too. In origin the cathedral needed to be faced from a porch, today annihilated, like us testifies the rests of 2 columns placed the facade. Within, 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 Maest’ where we can see bits of typical longobard sculptures. At the end of this road there were the gate of the Maest, collapsed with the church of’Santa Maria della Maest’ after a landslip in 1695. From there, a narrow lane came down to the water sources of Civita, particularly to source of the Columns and in the zone called’dell’Uncino’ ( hook ), where, for the legend, was found the thermal source from which Bagnoregium name derived.
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