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I PAESI DEL TERRITORIO
Siena
Sinalunga
Arezzo
Montepulciano
Montalcino
San Quirico
Pienza
Monticchiello
Chianciano Terme
Chiusi
Radicofani
Cortona
Perugia
Assisi
Todi
San Casciano dei Bagni
Sarteano
Cetona
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The origin of Assisi, as for many other cities in Umbria is uncertain. It was a inhabited by the umbri, a local population settled in middle Italy. Successively it was under the influence of Etruscans and Romans, as it is well documented by the numerous vestiges of the roman municipium called Asisium.
The Ostrogoths of king Totila destroyed most of the town in 545. Assisi then came under the rule of the Lombards and later the Frankish Duchy of Spoleto.
The thriving city became an independent Ghibelline commune in the 11th century. Constantly struggling with the Guelph Perugia, it was during one of those battles, the battle at Ponte San Giovanni, that Francesco di Bernardone, (Francis of Assisi), was taken prisoner, setting in motion the events that eventually led him to live as a beggar and renounce the world.
The Rocca Maggiore, the imperial fortress on top of the Mount Subasio, was plundered by the people in 1189, but rebuilt in 1367 on orders of the papal delegate, cardinal Gil de Albornoz.
In the beginning Assisi fell under the rule of Perugia and later under several despots, such as the soldier of fortune Biordo Michellotti, Gian Galeazzo Visconti, duke of Milan, Francesco I Sforza, another duke of Milan, Jacopo Piccinino and Federico I of Montefeltro, lord of Urbino. The city went into a deep decline through the plague of the Black death in 1348 AD.
In 1569 construction was started of the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli. During the renaissance and later centuries, the city continued to develop peacefully, attested by the 17th-century palaces of the Bernabei and Giacobetti.
Now the site of many a pilgrimage, Assisi is linked in legend with its native son, St. Francis. The gentle saint founded the Franciscan order and shares honors with St. Catherine of Siena as the patron saint of Italy. He is remembered by many, even non-Christians, as a lover of nature (his preaching to an audience of birds is one of the legends of his life).
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