May 20, 2024 - Classic Italy
Orvieto
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We left Rome and made the hour and a half drive north on Highway A1 to the hill town of Orvieto.
Orvieto is a town in southwestern Umbria, situated on the flat summit of a large butte of volcanic tuff. The city rises dramatically a thousand feet above the valley floor. The almost-vertical faces of tuff cliffs are completed by defensive wallsj. Orvieto, sitting on its impregnable rock. controls the road between Florence and Rome.
Centuries before Christ, Orvieto was one of a dozen major Etruscan cities.
The main site in Orvieto is the Duomo di Orvieto (Orvieto Cathedral).
The large 14th-century Roman Catholic cathedral was constructed under the orders of Pope Urban IV to commemorate and provide a suitable home for the Corporal of Bolsena, the relic of miracle which is said to have occurred in 1263 in the nearby town of Bolsena, when a traveling priest who had doubts about the truth of transubstantiation found that his Host was bleeding so much that it stained the altar cloth. The cloth is now stored in the Chapel of the Corporal inside the cathedral.
Situated in a position dominating the town of Orvieto which sits perched on a volcanic plug, the cathedral's façade is a classic piece of religious construction, containing elements of design from the 14th to the 20th century, with a large rose window, golden mosaics and three huge bronze doors, while inside resides two frescoed chapels decorated by some of the best Italian painters of the period with images of Judgment Day. The cathedral has five bells, dating back to the Renaissance, tuned in E flat.
After the sack of Rome at the end of 1527 Pope Clement VII took refuge in Orvieto. To ensure that the city would be sufficiently supplied with water in the event of a siege, he gave orders for the digging of the now famous artesian well Pozzo di San Patrizio (1528–1537).
The city of Orvieto has a labyrinth of caves and tunnels that lie beneath the surface. Dug deep into the tuff, a volcanic rock, these secret hidden tunnels are now open to view only through guided tours. The underground city boasts more than 1200 tunnels, galleries, wells, stairs, quarries, cellars, unexpected passageways, cisterns, superimposed rooms with numerous small square niches for pigeon roosts, detailing its creation over the centuries. Many of the homes of noble families were equipped with a means of escape from the elevated city during times of siege through secret escape tunnels carved from the soft rock. The tunnels would lead from the city palazzo to emerge at a safe exit point some distance away from city walls.
Here we are outside the cathedral with its beautiful facade.
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Looking up at Orvieto from the valley floor, which was once an Etruscan acropolis. Photo by Fantasy off Wikipedia.
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Aerial photo of the hill top town of Orvieto. At lower right are fortress ruins. There is a funicular there. The big square-shaped building at upper right are the former barracks. The Cathedral is hard to see but is at upper left.
Photo by Chensiyuan, off Wikipedia.
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This is the first striped Cathedral I have seen!
The church is striped in white travertine and greenish-black basalt in narrow bands, similar in many ways to the cathedral of Siena and other central Italian cathedrals of that era.
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On 15 November 1290, Pope Nicholas IV laid the cornerstone for the present building and dedicated it to the Assumption of the Virgin, a feast for which the city had a long history of special devotion.
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The square in front of the Cathedral.
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| A closer look at the facade. |
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| Our tour guide at right. |
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The Cathedral's base has four broad marble pillars carved with biblical scenes that tell the history of the world in four acts, from left to right.
The relief at left shows the Creation (God creating Eve from Adam's rib, and the snake tempting Eve).
The next relief shows the Tree of Jesse (Jesus' family tree -- with Mary, then Jesus on top) flanked by Old Testament stories.
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Close-up of the Creation relief (far left).
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| Close-up of Jesus's family tree and Old Testament stories. |
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The entrance with big bronze doors.
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| The far right relief showing the Last Judgment. At bottom, notice "the sarcophagi popping open and all hell breaking loose". ... Rick Steves |
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| A look at the entire Last Judgement relief. Each pillar is topped by a bronze symbol of one of the Evangelists: angel (Matthew), lion (Mark), eagle (John), and ox (Luke). This one is the ox (Luke). |
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| We couldn't go in the Cathedral at this time because the paramedics were honoring one of their own in a service. |
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Another look at the face. You can see the bronze symbols on the left two pillars here.
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| We walked through Orvieto's historic center. |
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Italian cat!
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| We had a nice lunch in this little restaurant: Trattoria la Grotta. Per Rick Steves, the owner-chef Franco has been at it for 50 years. |
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| Nothing but the freshest food and finest wine at the Trattoria la Grotta! Our entire group ate here. For free! Well, not really. |
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After the walk through town and lunch, we returned to the Cathedral and were able to go in.
"It's a big and rich cathedral -- the seat of a bishop." ... Rick Steves
I asked the tour guide who paid for it. She said the Pope made the town's wealthy people an offer they couldn't refuse, and they ponied up.
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No frescos on this ceiling.
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| Fancy marble floor. |
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The High Altar.
The brilliant stained glass is the painstakingly restored original from the 14th century.
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| The fine organ, high on the left, has more than 5,000 pipes. |
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On the right of the Nave, hear the High Altar, is the Chapel of San Brizio, which Rick Steves calls "Ovieto's one must-see artistic sight".
"This chapel features Luca Signorelli's brilliantly lit frescoes of the Day of Judgement and Life after Death (painted 1499-1504).
At lower left is The Sermon of the Antichrist. "A crowd gathers around a man preaching froma pedastal. It's the Antichrist, who comes posing as Jesus to mislead the faithful. This befuddled Antichrist forgets his lines mid-speech, but the Devil is on hand to whisper what to say next. His words sow wickedness through the world, including executions (upper right). The worried woman in red and white (foreground, left of pedestal) gets money from a man for something she's not proud of (perhaps receiving funds from a Jewish moneylender -- notice the Stars of David on his purse). Most likely, the Antichrist himself is a veiled reference to Savonarola (1452-1498), the charismatic Florentine monk who defied the pope, drove the Medici family from power, and riled the populace with apocalypic sermons. Many Italians -- including the painter Signorelli -- viewed Savonarola as a tyrant and heretic, the Antichrist who was userhing in the Last Days. In the upper left, notice the hardworking angel. He looks as if he's at batting practice, hitting followers of the Antichrist back to earth as they try to get through the pearly gates." ... Rick Steves
In the Sermon of the Antichrist, Signorelli includes recognizable portraits of the young Raphael, in a striking pose; Dante; possibly Christopher Columbus; Boccaccio; Petrarch; and Cesare Borgia.
At lower right is The Elect in Paradise which shows the elect in ecstasy looking up to music-making angels. The few extant drawings, made in preparation for this fresco, are kept in the Uffizi in Florence. They show each figure in various positions, indicating that Signorelli must have used real models in the nude to portray his figures.
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Here's a close-up of the lower left corner of The Sermon of the Antichrist. "It's a self-portrait of the artist, Luca Signorelli (1450-1523), well-dressed in black with long golden hair. Signorelli, from near-by Cortona, was at the peak of his powers, and this chapel was his masterpiece. He looks out proudly as if to say, "I did all this in just five years, on time and on budget,' confirming his reputation as a speedy, businesslike painter. Next to him (also in black) is the artist Fra Angelico, who started the chapel decoration five decades earlier but completed only a small part of it." ... Rick Steves
What an interesting painting!
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| "On the right wall is the Resurrection of the Bodies. Trumpeting angels blow a wake-up call, and the dead climb dreamily out of the earth to be clothed with new bodies." ... Rick Steves |
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On the left side of the Nave, near the High Altar is the Chapel of the Corporal. I didn't get a picture of it -- I should have -- so here's one by Georges Jansoone from Wikipedia.
The Chapel of the Corporal is very important because this Cathedral was built primarily to display a single miraculous relic, and the relic is displayed here.
In 1263, a German priest named Peter of Prague was traveling through Italy when he began to experience doubts about the doctrine of the Eucharist (the belief that the bread and wine used in the sacrament of the Holy Communion are transformed into the actual body and blood of Christ). During a mass in the town of Bolsena, near Orvieto, while celebrating the Eucharist, Peter allegedly saw the host (the consecrated bread) begin to bleed, with drops of blood staining the corporal (the cloth on which the host was placed).
The miracle was seen as divine confirmation of the Catholic teaching on the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Afterward, Peter brought the stained corporal to Pope Urban IV in nearby Orvieto. The amazed pope proclaimed a new holiday, Corpus Christi (Body of Christ), and the Orvieto cathedral was built (begun in 1290) to display the miraculous relic.
The bloody cloth from the miracle is displayed in that blue square frame atop the chapel's altar.
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| An ornage little alcove. |
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