One day visiting #Bettona (PG) to see one of the most #beautiful #villages d#Italy (#Borghi più Belli d#Italia) From the hill of Bettona, which is located in the center of Umbria, your view extends over #Perugia, #Assisi, #Spello, more or less in a range of twenty miles. #Bettona, however, does not remain in the shadow of these towns, because in town there is a lot to be seen. First of all, the old town is entirely surrounded by walls, which are based in part on those originating in #Etruscan times, consisting of large square stones in sandstone. The city has, in fact, Etruscan origins, and from this period is preserved a tomb, while the old wooden door of the Santa #Caterina town gate still refer to warlike times of the past, when in the evening the door had to be closed with all inhabitants inside its walls. In Bettona there are plenty monuments dating back to the Middle Ages: among the oldest we have the #Church of St. #Crispolto, built by the Benedictine monks in the early thirteenth century to preserve the body of the first bishop and martyr of #Umbria, the patron saint of bettona. The building has a Latin cross, the current nineteenth-century facade is the work of Antonio #Stefanucci, a pupil of #Vanvitelli. From the original Romanesque building remain only the pointed bell tower. Also from the thirteenth century, but altered several times until losing its original form, is the Oratory of St. #Andrew. It has a beautiful wooden ceiling of the sixteenth century, an eighteenth-century altar and interesting series of paintings of the school of Giotto depicting the Passion of Christ, dated 1394. The most important church is the Collegiate S. #Maria Maggiore, built in the early days of #Christianity, enlarged and re-consecrated in 1225 and restored in the current neoclassical style in the years 1803 to 1816. From the original #Romanesque-#Gothic structure remained only a chapel. The apse was painted in 1939 by the Futurist painter #Gerardo #Dottori. Noteworthy is the high altar, adorned with a ciborium in the shape of a small temple with dome and the stained glass apse windows. The civil architecture is represented by Palazzo Biancalana from the first half of the nineteenth century. It houses the #archaeological section and part of the #art collection of the City #Museum, whose collection is also the Palazzo del Podesta, built in 1371. Here you can admire two paintings by Perugino, a Madonna della Misericordia and St. Anthony, and other works by artists such as Jusepe de Ribera and Fiorenzo di Lorenzo. Another fine architectural example is the Palazzo Baglioni, where died on the eve of #Christmas 1531, the Malatesta IV #Baglioni, whose family remained in possession of Bettona from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century. If there is still time, just outside the village, you find the eighteenth-century Villa del Boccaglione designed by #Piermarini and the impressive Romanesque church of San Quirico. The #Abbey of San Crispolto, founded by Benedictine monks around the year one thousand, from where the history of the Bettona began is a private home. Read more: it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bettona Follow us on Meravigliosa Umbria
Posted on: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 15:20:00 +0000
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