Foligno
A city with distinct medieval characteristics that has evolved over the years, today presenting five-nineteenth-century modernity among its peculiar features.
Foligno is one of the rare historical centers of Umbria built on the plain , built on the banks of the Topino where the river flows into the valley. The area saw the drying up of large swampy areas with subsequent interventions, first in Roman times, then in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries up to the definitive ones in the nineteenth century. The most significant moment of a visit to Foligno is probably represented by a visit to Piazza della Repubblica and to the adjoining Piazza Duomo .
The first, in its current layout, with an elongated shape and the grafting of four streets at the corners, responds to the more general canons with which many Umbrian municipal squares were designed between the 12th and 13th centuries; it is overlooked by the Duomo, the Palazzo Comunale erected between 1262 and 1265, the Palazzo Pretorio , the Palazzo Orfini from 1515 and the Palazzo Trinci, which preserves traces of the beautiful decorations and some exquisitely frescoed rooms.
The most attentive tourists should not leave Foligno without visiting the Romanesque church of Santa Maria Infraportas and the abbey of Sassovivo just 6 km from the center. The first is characterized, in addition to the frescoes of the 400 and 500, by the beautiful bell tower and a portico of the 11th century, the second instead will be remembered for the 13th century Romanesque cloister on 128 slender columns and for the mystical atmosphere that you breathe in Benedictine environments. Among the most important events organized in the city, the Giostra della Quintana undoubtedly deserves a special note.