Guides to the area
Gubbio
Gubbio is a quarter of an hour from the Casale and it is the city of the mad. We are not the ones saying it: they say it themselves, and they are proud of it. This is not a guide to read: it is a walk in eight stops, with something to do at each one and a curiosity to discover. At the end there is a quiz. You start from the former Seminary car park, climb up, and come down by another street: a loop.
Distance from the Casale
15 minutes.
Parking
Former Seminary car park.
How long
Half a day at an easy pace; a whole day with the museum and the cable car.
Tips
Comfortable shoes: Gubbio is uphill. The «Done» boxes stay saved on your phone.
Up, past the doors of the dead
From the former Seminary car park, inside the walls and uphill
Leave the car, enter the old town and start climbing. Gubbio is made of five parallel streets, one above the other, linked by steps, alleys and even lifts. As you climb, look at the stone houses: many have, beside the main door, a second, narrower door, raised off the ground and walled up. These are the «doors of the dead».
Count how many doors of the dead you find before you reach the Bargello. Whoever counts the most wins. Nobody goes in: they have been walled up for centuries.
Did you know?
According to popular belief that door was opened only once: to carry out the coffin of someone who had died in the house. Then it was closed again. Whether it is true or not, historians still argue; meanwhile the doors are there, and Gubbio is full of them.
The fountain of the mad
Largo del Bargello, in front of the Palazzo del Bargello
It is called the Fontana del Bargello, it dates from the sixteenth century, and nobody calls it that. It is the fountain of the mad, and this is where you get your licence.
Run three times around the fountain without stopping. Then wait: if someone from Gubbio walks by, they will splash you with water from the fountain. That is the baptism. If nobody comes by, ask the first person who looks local: they are usually happy to do it.
Did you know?
The tradition goes back to 1880, and the three laps imitate the «birate», the fast turns the ceraioli make around the flagpole in Piazza Grande on 15 May. The real licence, the one on parchment, is issued only by the Associazione Maggio Eugubino: you need someone from Gubbio to request it for you, and a small fee. Among the licensed madmen are Terence Hill and Vittorio Sgarbi. And, as a young student in the eighties, Robert Francis Prevost: today Pope Leo XIV.
The hanging square
Piazza Grande
Piazza Grande was not there. In the fourteenth century the city wanted a public palace at a point equally fair to all its districts, and since there was a slope there, they built the square in mid-air: on top of a series of huge arches, which you can see from the lower part of town. On either side stand the Palazzo dei Consoli and the Palazzo Pretorio, which was never finished.
Go to the parapet and look at the valley. Then go down and look at the square from below: those arches hold up everything you were standing on.
Did you know?
On 15 May, at the Corsa dei Ceri, three teams of ceraioli run through the town carrying three enormous wooden structures, topped by Saint Ubaldo, Saint George and Saint Anthony the Abbot. They are raised here, in Piazza Grande. And if you feel you have seen the square before: yes, the carabinieri station in the TV series Don Matteo was here.
Seven bronze tablets
Civic Museum, Palazzo dei Consoli
Inside the Palazzo dei Consoli are the Iguvine Tablets: seven bronze plates written in Umbrian, the language spoken here before the Romans. It is the longest ritual text that ancient Italy has left us. They were found around the middle of the fifteenth century near the Roman Theatre, and the town bought them in 1456.
The tablets are written in two different alphabets: the Umbrian one, which looks like Etruscan, and the Latin one. Find the ones in the Latin alphabet, which you can almost read.
Did you know?
In the same museum there are two sixteenth-century plates by Mastro Giorgio Andreoli, made with the lustre technique: that ruby and gold sheen which Mastro Giorgio made famous here and which is still made in Gualdo Tadino.
Up to the Cathedral
Via Federico da Montefeltro, the Cathedral, the Palazzo Ducale
From the upper corner of the square you climb further. At the top are the Cathedral, the Palazzo dei Canonici with the Diocesan Museum, and opposite, the Palazzo Ducale, which the Montefeltro had built when Gubbio belonged to them.
In the Diocesan Museum look for the Canons' Barrel. It is enormous: try to guess how much wine it held, then ask someone who works there.
Did you know?
Gubbio is the seventh largest municipality in Italy by area: 525 square kilometres, almost all of it woodland, hills and mountain. The centre you are walking around is a crumb.
In a cage, towards the sky
Colle Eletto cable car, Via San Girolamo, and the Basilica of Sant'Ubaldo
The Gubbio cable car has no cabins: it has open metal baskets for two people, which never stop. You jump on as it moves, helped by the attendant, and in six minutes you go from 532 to 803 metres. At the top is the Basilica of Sant'Ubaldo, with the saint's body in a glass case and, in the right-hand aisle, the three Ceri waiting for the next 15 May.
Go up. If you are scared, look at the town, not at the drop. The way back is the best part. If you really cannot face it, walk up the road of the Ceri: it is the one the ceraioli run up.
Did you know?
The cable car dates from 1960, built for the eight hundredth anniversary of the death of Saint Ubaldo. And the side of Monte Ingino below you is where, from 7 December to Epiphany, the largest Christmas tree in the world is lit: hundreds of lights laid out on the mountain, with a star on top.
Down the other way
Corso Garibaldi, the San Pietro district, Piazza Quaranta Martiri
From the cable car do not go back the same way: go down the other side, along Corso Garibaldi, which leads into the San Pietro district. The church of San Pietro was already a Benedictine monastery a thousand years ago; it has frescoes inside, and the former convent now houses the town library. Then you come out into Piazza Quaranta Martiri, the lower square, where the market was held in the Middle Ages: on one side the church of San Francesco, on the other the Loggia dei Tiratori.
Look at the long loggia above the portico: count the arches. Then go into San Francesco and walk right to the end, to the apses, and look for scenes from the saint's life in the frescoes.
Did you know?
The loggia was built for the Wool Guild in the sixteenth century: up there the cloth was «stretched», that is, the wet fabric was hung out so that it would dry to the right size. And Francis came here from Assisi after leaving his father's house, and found shelter with the Spadalonga family: according to tradition Gubbio is the town where his conversion became real, among the poor and the lepers of these streets.
The theatre and the wolf
Roman Theatre and the church of the Vittorina, on the way back
From Piazza Quaranta Martiri, heading back to the car outside the walls, there are two more things. First the Roman Theatre, from the first century BC, built of limestone blocks, from which you can see all of Gubbio. Then, the last stop before heading home, the little church of Santa Maria della Vittoria, the Vittorina, where tradition places the meeting between Francis and the wolf that was terrorising the town: the last photo before you leave.
Look for the wolf. In Gubbio it is everywhere: on signs, on souvenirs, in shop windows. Count at least five.
Did you know?
The story is in the Little Flowers of St Francis, chapter twenty-one: Francis speaks to the wolf, the wolf promises never to harm anyone again, and in return the town promises to feed it. It lived in peace with the people of Gubbio to the end of its days. That is how the wolf became, for everyone, the symbol of peace between people and animals.
The madman's quiz
Five questions. You have already seen all the answers along the way. Open to check.
- How many laps of the fountain do you need for the madman's licence?
Answer
Three. And you need someone from Gubbio to splash you.
- How many Iguvine Tablets are there, and what language are they written in?
Answer
Seven, in the Umbrian language, with two alphabets: Umbrian and Latin.
- How many people fit in a cable car basket?
Answer
Two. And you get on while it is moving.
- What day is the Corsa dei Ceri?
Answer
15 May, every year.
- Why is Piazza Grande «hanging»?
Answer
Because it is built on top of great arches: underneath there was the slope, not the square.
At the end
Eight stops done, three laps of the fountain and five wolves counted: you are one step away from being mad too. The real licence is requested from the Maggio Eugubino; the rest you take home with you.
The madman's licence, on the Maggio Eugubino website · The Civic Museum in the Palazzo dei Consoli
In autumn Gubbio also holds the White Truffle Fair.
Museums, cable car and licence are run by others: opening times and tickets are on their websites. Opening times change with the seasons.
A quarter of an hour's drive, and dinner at the Casale at 7:30 pm.
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