Sant'Urbano

Sant’Urbano is a small village perched on a hill 444 metres above sea level in Umbria, east of the plain of Narni. It stands below the neighbouring village of Itieli and has only about fifty permanent residents. The first traces of the place go back to Roman times, when fragments of a statue base for the goddess Fortuna were found nearby. In the Middle Ages the local lords were the Castelli family of Terni, though part of the village was sold to Farfa Abbey in 1038. Sant’Urbano often changed hands but usually remained under Narni’s authority. The village’s history includes alliances with Pope Honorius III in 1225 and a papal interdict in 1291 for refusing to pay taxes. The Statutes of Narni in 1371 protected Sant’Urbano’s woods, especially near the Speco of San Francesco, and the forests are still collectively owned today. In 1532 the Medici cardinal Ippolito de’ Medici camped here on his way to war against the Turks, and the whole caravan was supplied at the village’s expense. Among the few remains is the Franciscan Speco, a 60-metre cleft descending almost vertically into the valley below. The site may have been inhabited since the year 1000 by Benedictine monks who built the chapel of San Silvestro. Today the Friars Minor live in the convent built by Bernardino of Siena, with a cloister, chapel and the saint’s own bed. Nearby is the Formina cistern, the start of a 13-kilometre aqueduct that once carried water to Narni. Every May the village takes part in the procession of the Intusse, tall torches made from pine pieces, walking together with Itieli and San Faustino to honour their patron saints.