Viterbo: who needs a museum?

At dinner at their apartment we had said to the owners of this apartment, Noelene and Ian McBride, that we had developed some kind of aversion to Viterbo (20km away, the provincial capital) because we knew nothing of it other than traffic snarls.

"That's what happens to everybody," said Ian. "We are going to London in the afternoon, but we'll take you to Viterbo in the morning." What amazing and lovely people they are. After protestations we accepted. In another life, on another planet called Brisbane, Noelene has retired from lecturing in early childhood education, continues with voluntary roles, Ian still has a veterinary practice. I suppose people focused on small children and small animals should be good with people too, but they also have this extraordinary still-learning love of this area.

So here they are in the Viterbo spring sunshine.

It is a city with a huge history, of which we can only offer fragments.

This below, located on the loggia, at least I think it's a loggia, yes, it's not a portico, in the picture above, is the lid of an Etruscan coffin, the lady in question has her hand around a drinking glass which is not there any more. This is from perhaps (I did not look for detail) 2600 years old. We don't hear much about the Etruscans because they lost to the Romans, after providing the first Roman kings, before Rome became a republic, and the victors write history. Viterbo still offers that sense as in imperial Rome (and imperial Sydney for that matter) that really anything worthwhile is something invented here. Anyway, you get from this image below that life had its comforts a long time ago here. Noting also that the Greeks and Romans were actually scandalised by the Etruscan inclusion of women in events like eating which were meant to be men's business.

Here, not far away, at the entrance to that loggia, are a number of plaques.

This one deserves a doctoral thesis alone. I cannot begin to imagine (nor do I really so wish) all the complicated considerations which led Napoleon III to give Viterbo to the Pope in the latter part of 1860. Click here to know more about this figure in history. Go back in this blog to Buonconvento, south of Siena, to see how close the kingdom of Italy is, in the north, with the vote of Tuscany to join the kingdom. There is another thesis no doubt in how and why this plaque was erected in 1910

... and here next is the 1872 monument to some of those who died for Italian independence from 1848 (when a socialist revolution briefly succeeded in Rome, as in other cities in Italy and Europe)... we know nothing about this generally in Australia, but might here record that Raffaello Carboni of Eureka Stockade fame (not mentioned in Viterbo, this is a minor diversion, scusi) had fled to Melbourne after the collapse of the Roman Republic. It is little known in Australia that after getting off a treason charge for his incitement of the Eureka Stockade events in Ballarat he returned to Italy and had a role of some significance in Italy's reunification, ending his days writing in Naples.

Here, across the Piazza del Plebiscito from the castle where those plaques are located, is the entrance to the Palazzo Governo, of the province.
and here, just a step away, left of photo, photo not knowing its future historical importance, is the door of the Caffe Leonardo, in via San Lorenzo... the bar where I left the car keys not the toilet key on Tuesday!!

and one proceeds through urban beauty

This remarkable little church was site of a major historical event.

Here on the outside wall is a not-easy-to-photograph plaque which records a great and enuring disgrace on the city of Viterbo. Here, on the morning of 12 March 1271, Guido e Simone di Montforte (the brothers Guy and Simon de Montfort) assassinated during Holy Mass none other than Enrico Cornavaglia (Henry of Cornwall, come on pilgrimage to see the pope, then resident in Viterbo). The monstrous nature of the crime was of course that they did it in the church and during the mass! Though if you read how Henry's dad had done in Guy and Simon's dad, and if you care a thought for the fact as the sort of plug-and-play King of England for a bit in the thirteenth century their dad actually convened the first vaguely representative parliament, you might have gone to help. If you wish to understand life in such luscious times, do not fail to read the text at this link. The wars of Murdoch and Berlusconi for the world are but metaphorically to the death ... but such a terrible, terrible punishment for a bloke who wanted a parliament, dirty little socialist.

... and so on through blissful sunshiny streets we proceeded...

Those of you seeking to replace your washing machine consider (this photo leaning over a parapet) the cold springwater Bash'n'Bash system, free replacement workers as and when...

... before entering this delightful piazza before the cathedral.

before having a peek at the place where cardinals met in conclave to select their popes. Indeed, this is where the practise began, and initially disgusted the populace. You can see the holes in the floor where poles were put up to support the tents erected inside for the non-agreeing popes at the first conclave, after the locals ripped the roof off, to tell the cardinals they were fed up with feeding them. The second source of this story, first told to us by Noelene and Ian, is impeccable, to say the least. And hey listen, if you go to the end of the news release at that link you will see that last year the pope went on to Bagnoregio... when we decided just a few minutes that we would go to Bagnoregio today, for less holy purpose! Must fly!!


But, before we fly, here, photo from the piazza outside the cathedral: all please pay homage to another most important historical item in Italian history, the Fiat Cinquecento which brought the postwar nation, riding motorscooters, indoors in the late-1950s and 60s.

Mugnano

From the Parco dei Mostri at Bomarzo we went down the road towards the east, towards the Tiber, the north south rail line and the autostrada. Avoiding such embranglement, we turned right after 3 km to climb up to the little village of Mugnano (actually a frazione of Bomarzo), past which we had driven in the dusk once before, marking it down as definitely a hilltop to be visited, more precarious than most, and from information on public works signs up there, with significant hydrogeological issues, the rock being so porous.

Here (next photo below) is a plaque at the entry to the hilltop town, telling of how this too was a place of Orsini expansion north from Rome and how they lost it to the so-and-so's and the so-and-so's etc...

Note, in the context of Mugnano's history, the Italian word paese for which the google translator offers these possible meanings:

noun country land region village parts

and remember that all pictures can be enlarged with a click (press back to return)

It is a startlingly beautiful little village, wonderfully maintained.

This house below, with the washing mixing it with the grape vines, is in the left corner of the square above; there is a view from the other end of the square (excuse me, Piazza Vittorio Emanuele III) below the picture of the house. When we had done our tour of the village and returned to this square, we spoke with an elderly, stylish, well-dressed man who lives, as it happens, in that house. No, he was not born here, his wife was.

How many people altogether we asked: "Forse ottanta, novanta, almeno non pui di cento. Non sono tanti, ma sono tutti buoni." (Perhaps 80, 90, at least not more than 100. Not many but they are all good people.) - Said with a warm smile.

Look at the pictures below after reading the history on the plaque above, see the extent of maintenance by local government and also the care and respect by the community. This in a place that doesn't actually make it to Wikipedia or anywhere else much on the internet. How nice.

Helen in here looking southwards (towards the sun) down the Tiber, at this point running from the north, heading towards Rome where it shifts westward and to the Tyrhennian Sea. The Etruscans commanded this side of the Tiber for half of the first millenium BC, providing the first kings of Rome before the Romans made themselves a republic. The river was a great natural barrier for a long time, also navigable.

The Orsinis built the tower in the thirteenth century, only the tower was left when in the fifteenth century, the Colonna family under Pope Martin V, tore down the Orsini's fortifications. If the tower is that old, the potted olive beside it is also of great age.

These cats below (seven) are in via del Ghetto. We did not have opportunity to discuss the ghetto.

This picture of a neatly bag lined bin (all towns are cleaned, all rubbish removed first thing every morning in Italy) is included because even it, even it, speaks of Orsini, the pine cone being the family symbol.

... and this picture is included not only because the doors are beautiful and umbrellas sensible, but also to show how you keep the mineral water cold in winter.

You see from all this how perplexed we are by the tendency of so many tourists to natter together in the bus or train, heads down, between the museums... though on reflection, long may they continue so to do! The world of actuality, among such interesting people, is wonderful.

Orvieto

On Saturday we had set out, mapless, to travel through the snow-on-ground-briefly Cimino hills to Viterbo, the provincial capital, then from there were enticed by the sign for Siena, to the north, though we knew Siena was a considerable distance away. En route we left the winding road to enter Montesfiascone, a hilltop village (most villages are) and did not stop because there was nowhere to stop, passing on then to Orvieto. Orvieto looms from the floor of the valley on a great block of tuff, volcanic ash based rock; a site preferred by the Etruscans as a defended city, later depopulated by the Romans who could see there was no security on the main road north from Rome without depopulating it. Five hundred years ago the pope of the day sat safely up there while the Holy Roman Emperor and armies marched south and north below, to sack Rome. 

As an impregnable refuge, Orvieto has a well, with track for donkey, from the top down to the bottom.

We parked the car in the civilised car park not far from the bottom of the hill and proceeded by escalator (steps coming down later) to the town above. There are roads, there would have been, on this winter day, plenty of parking places at the top, but it was nice not to take another machine up there.

There is much style in this extraordinary town, well-maintained with a major income from tourists. And then (second photo below) one comes around a corner and there ahead is the most extraordinary building.

When you come out of narrow streets into the piazza and are confronted by the duomo (cathedral) its proportions are startling.

Though some continue to do daily things....

and parents photograph small children, as I did here in 1968-69...

The duomo was designed and then redesigned from 1280 to 1302 and most of it built by 1330 (or so, lots of bits still to be done and see the date MDCCCXIX (1819) on the front steps, above, note that in 1969 when I was last there there was still squabbling over the big front doors, now installed), a timetable very favourably comparable with the Sydney Opera House given the resources of the time. The scale of the building and the profundity and power of its religious iconography must have made it of enormous power, both religious and political, for many centuries - among the locals if not beyond, it mainly being a refuge, not otherwise powerfully located.

The details on the exterior are both beautiful and well maintained.

There is somehow both a counterpoint and visual symmetry between the cathedral and this shop around the corner, in the immense complexity of their wares. We liked the message, gold on red below (remember all photos enlarge if clicked on) which reads "CRUSHING DREAMS PROHIBITED'... But is it beneath a model of the Titanic?

... and then one is walking back towards the end of the day and the car park, along cobbled streets, looking in courtyards, wondering if Dante's feet trod here, which of many popes' molecules are blowing here or there; what soldiers, what princes, what tired workers, what craftsmen; which women held in what regard and circumstance; what hopeful, what despairing, what decent, what rotten person; with what culture, what language, what expection, over thousands of years, are we following here?

snow, the Cimino forests, Etruscans

Here is Elena's photo, from the car, yesterday morning, going out from Soriano towards Viterbo, through the Cimini mountains and forests. Together with a photo of the forests taken today from the castle, snow gone. The historical importance of these, the forests now no doubt much thinner than in antiquity - and of course easier to see through with snow on the ground - is as a natural defensive barrier, for various people at various times.

The Etruscans dominated western central Italy from around 1000 to 300 BC, not ruling as one state but as a number of city states sharing language and evolving culture. The basis of their power was the fact that their territory, east and north of the Tiber, the coast, the island of Elba and inland through Florence and to Perugia, was source of much of the iron and copper and tin of the Mediterranean basin... bronze being an alloy of 85% copper to 15% (or so) tin.

So their wealth grew in trade with the Phoenicians, who had a port on the coast, Carthage (which seceded from Phoenicia, the great achievements of Phoenicia being that they were the first to sail the Mediterranean in winter) and Greece - the Greeks overland via southeastern Italy to the extent that the sea to the west tended to be controlled by Carthage and Phoenicia and later Rome. As Rome rose Etruscan city states fell under their rule, gently or violently. There is little left of Etruscia, their houses being largely of wood and all but their very extensive cemeteries sacked by the Romans.

The Cimini were the best defence of the Etruscans against the Romans. Their cities south of the Cimini fell relatively easily to expanding Rome.