Guides to the area
Spello
Spello is a town of pink stone on the side of Monte Subasio, between Assisi and Foligno. It has Roman walls, a cycle of frescoes by Pinturicchio, and a passion for flowers that, one night a year, becomes a carpet a kilometre and a half long. You visit it on foot, climbing, from the oldest gate to the most beautiful.
Distance from the Casale
45 minutes.
Parking
Near Porta Consolare, outside the walls.
How long
Two or three hours at an easy pace.
Tips
It is uphill all the way: comfortable shoes. Lanes full of flowers from May to July.
Porta Consolare
The southern entrance, on the Via Flaminia
Spello was Hispellum, a Roman town on the Via Flaminia, the road from Rome to Rimini, and it keeps one of the best preserved rings of Roman walls in Italy. You enter by the oldest gate, the Consolare, with three arches and, high up, three statues from the Republican era.
Curiosity
Look at the tower next to the gate: at the top, among the stones, an olive tree is growing. It has been there so long that it has become the symbol of the town and of its most famous product, olive oil.
The Villa of the Mosaics
Just outside Porta Consolare
Here are the floors of a Roman villa: whole rooms of mosaics, opened to the public in 2018. It is the first place to see, even before you enter the town.
Via Consolare and the flower-filled lanes
From the gate towards the centre, uphill
The main street climbs from the gate to the centre, and the lanes open off it on either side. From May into the summer the residents take part in a competition, «Windows, balconies and lanes in flower», and every stairway, every windowsill, every arch is full of plants. In those months it is the most flower-filled town in Umbria.
Santa Maria Maggiore and the Baglioni Chapel
On the main street, in the centre
Inside a church with a plain façade is the «Cappella Bella»: Troilo Baglioni commissioned it in 1500, and Pinturicchio painted all of it in 1501, with the Annunciation, the Adoration of the Shepherds and Jesus among the Doctors. The floor is of Deruta majolica, from 1566. It is one of the masterpieces of the Umbrian Renaissance, and it is all in a single chapel.
Curiosity
In the Annunciation, on the left-hand wall, look near a small painted window for a little portrait: it is Pinturicchio's self-portrait, with his signature. He painted himself into the scene, like an object in the Virgin's room.
Sant'Andrea
A little further on, on the same street
Another church, and another Pinturicchio: a large panel from 1508. The Blessed Andrea Caccioli also rests here.
Porta Venere and the Towers of Propertius
The north-western edge of the town
Climb further, along Via Torri di Properzio, to the most striking gate: a Roman arch with three openings, from the age of Augustus, between two twelve-sided towers. The towers have been restored and can be visited; from up there you see the houses of pale stone and the hills around. The name comes from a temple of Venus that stood nearby.
Curiosity
Legend has it that the paladin Orlando was held prisoner in a large room next to Porta Venere. And on the right-hand wall of another gate, the Porta Urbica, there are said to be certain marks recalling his physical prowess. We leave the interpretation to you.
The Infiorata
Once a year, for Corpus Domini — the ninth Sunday after Easter — Spello works all night. Teams of infioratori cover the streets with pictures made of petals, for about a kilometre and a half, and they must finish before the procession passes in the morning. They work on the ground, on the cobbles, petal by petal; people come out into the street to watch. Tens of thousands arrive, and it is worth knowing that beforehand.
Curiosity
The team that wins the competition keeps a bronze statue of Sextus Propertius, the Latin poet born in these parts, for a year. If you are in Spello at another time of year, there is a small Infiorata Museum, in the Sala delle Volte, which shows how they are made.
In practice, from the Casale
When
From May to July for the flower-filled lanes. For the Infiorata, the night before Corpus Domini: beautiful, but very crowded.
And in the evening
You are back in three quarters of an hour. Dinner at the Casale is served between 7:30 pm and 8:00 pm, by reservation.
Three quarters of an hour's drive, and dinner ready when you get back.
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