Bello Spello – SPELLBOUND IN UMBRIA
Diana Reynolds Roome
“Bello Spello, eh?” calls the older of two women gossiping together on the steps in front of a neat three-story stone house. They nod approvingly when I agree. But they’re too modest about this jewel of a walled town perched on a hill in Umbria, the golden midsection of Italy that most people miss altogether as they rush from Florence to Rome. Spello is more than bello. It’s spellbinding.
For a start, there’s the grand entrance. Because most of Spello’s streets are too narrow to accommodate twentieth century traffic, I make the steep ascent from below the ancient walls on foot, taking a short cut through a field of wildflowers. Forget practical concerns about luggage. That would be dealt with all in good time. The approach on foot had been used from time immemorial and no other way in could show off the town’s charm so well. I learned later that marauding invaders of the distant past were more likely to receive pots of boiling oil on their heads than a welcoming carpet of flowers underfoot.
Like most people, I first glimpsed Spello from the highway. Backlit by early morning sun or basking in the celebrated evening glow of Umbria, it draws the eye like a magnet. Sprawling neatly over the lower slopes of Mount Subasio, the town looks at first like a pink and beige rock outcrop with a backdrop of oaks, olive groves and vines. If you’re coming from Assisi, which is 10 kilometers away on the other side of the mountain, your mind is probably too occupied by Giotto’s frescoes and the stories of saints to do anything but drive past with an admiring nod.
But I have the good fortune to get in closer, by staying at one of the town’s family-run hotels. My room looks out on a street so quiet that sometimes the only thing I hear is a bell-chime or a pigeon. This is remarkable in a country that’s so popular with travelers that it annually doubles its own population. There is no touting of tourist goods, no well-placed tourist office, few picture postcards, and only a handful of shops catering to visitors. The central piazza is full of old men gossiping on park benches, and black-frocked women scurrying to the green-grocer and deli for the day’s supplies.
But though they don’t court them, the townspeople seem quietly happy to have visitors. When I compliment the man in the alimentari on his peaches, trying out my wildly ungrammatical Italian as I buy a bottle of Spello’s own olive oil, I receive a smiling “Grazie” and am greeted warmly next time I come in.
Repeat visits to the grocery stores are not only a treat for the marvelous fruit, cheeses (including the local pecorino) and olives. They’re also necessary fuel for explorations. While a walk up and down Spello’s narrow, stone-paved streets is a feast for the eyes, it’s also a penance for the thighs. But the effort is well rewarded. While pausing for breath, I have only to swivel my head a little to see something remarkable.
To the right and left are tantalizing glimpses of neat alleyways, with maybe a cat disappearing through a doorway or a cascade of scarlet geraniums tumbling down an ancient wall. Fragments of Roman inscriptions are half buried in the stonework. Tiny treasures, such as a medieval fountain or an immeasurably old indigo-painted door, reveal themselves in inconspicuous corners.
The walls themselves seem to speak, containing layers of history, from Roman and medieval times to the eighteenth century. You can almost forget the twenty-first, except when you see a shiny red new scooter leaning incongruously outside an ancient church or buzzing past like a monstrous mosquito. Small vehicles can and do negotiate some of the wider streets, causing pedestrians to flatten themselves against the venerable walls. (Ever courteous while on two feet, Italians on wheels become demons.) The facade of San Lorenzo, one of a dozen or so churches in this town whose population barely tops 8,000, wears its history like a map. Remnants of 12th century Romanesque portals underlay its present sixteenth century arrangement of rose windows. An eye more practiced than mine can detect additions from a few decades later, as well as an exquisite carved arch judged to be over a thousand years old.
You never know what other surprises you might find by chance. Roads here are not designed to lead sensibly somewhere by the most direct route. They cross town vertically, horizontally, diagonally, but never predictably. The end of one alley is always the beginning of two or three more. Even when I can’t figure out which leads to the Porta Urbica, I know I can hardly fail to reach one or other of the medieval or Roman gates (six of which were built by the Emperor Augustus).
Just as three black cats obligingly wander into the road for my camera, a splendid trio of barrel-vaulted arches rear up ahead. An Italian would have put the camera away at this point: black gatti are such bad fortuna in Italy that a solitary feline crossing a busy road can cause a traffic jam. Searching the pages of Spello’s own guidebook, I discover this to be the Porta Venere, or Venus Gate (named for a Roman temple that once drew crowds to Spello). The Towers of Properzio loom on either side, evoking scenes of bowmen poised to shoot from the narrow lookouts. The cats bring me more luck. On my return, I pass a well-stocked wine shop whose proprietor speaks excellent English, offers me a taste of the local olives, and shows off the remains of a Roman olive press found under the floor of his property.
Ascending once again to find the Monastery of Santa Maria Vallegloria, (be warned, you’re always either ascending or descending in this town) I’m sidetracked by a modern art exhibition in a tiny church. Alas, today’s artists have a hard time competing with their famous forerunners, or even with nature. Fabulous views of the green and gold Umbrian landscape reveal themselves between buildings at every turn, often framed by arches cunningly devised to intensify perspective. Ancient frescoes jump out unexpectedly from walls and niches. Paintings by the Renaissance artist, Pinturicchio, in the revered Baglioni Chapel of the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, look like exquisitely delicate transfers of what I have just seen outside. They’re so real that, on returning to the street, I am almost surprised to see people wearing short cotton dresses or polyester shirts and pants instead of brightly colored robes and haloes.
Even the view beneath one’s feet is rewarding. The meticulous pink paving is impressive at any time of year, but it’s here that Spello’s modern artists have the best chance to show off their talents. Every June, on the feast of Corpus Christi, the citizens of the town turn their central street into a vast and variegated carpet of art made entirely out of flowers.
Petals and leaves are collected from the surrounding countryside, sorted by color, then used as pigments during a frenzied night of creativity to manifest a design that has probably been weeks or months in the planning. Religious themes, interpreted in every imaginable way from abstract symbols to replicas of Raphael or Michaelangelo paintings, take shape petal by petal. When day comes, visitors troop past, admiring and photographing for a few short hours, until the afternoon’s procession moves down the street, scattering thousands of flowers and countless hours of work to the winds.
This event, known as Infiorata, makes a fitting contrast to the town itself, which is a statement of permanence defying wars, invasions, earthquakes, periods of economic decline, and even fame. Spello had its days of glory, when people flocked to its temples, its baths and its Roman amphitheatre for religious games and performances.
Then Spello was dubbed “Splendidissima.” Now, even thought the name doesn’t even find its way into some guidebooks, the epithet still fits. But like the flower petal art and the bruschetta festival, when the olive harvest is celebrated with little charbroiled toasts brushed with garlic and oil, Spello’s brilliance is quiet and small-scale, but deliciously distinct.
The lack of a celebrated saint, artist or building to call its own may be Spello’s greatest fortune. Its secrets will not be turned inside out and cast in souvenir form. Its neatly laid cobbles will not be pounded smooth by crowds. And people will still hurtle by it on the highway, looking back at the pink and gold hill town as it recedes into the distance, and wondering what they just left behind.
I, for one, am glad I know.
If you go:
Spello lies just east of route S75 south of Perugia in central Umbria.
The town has three or four hotels, but Albergo del Teatro and Il Cacciatore are situated in the upper half of town on Via Giulia, and afford some rooms with outstanding views. (Though there is no guarantee of being delivered to their doors by motor vehicle, the hotel owner can be gently persuaded to bring luggage up from below). Il Cacciatore has an outdoor terrace restaurant overlooking the valley.
Specialties of Spello are its olive oil and truffles found in the oak forests that cover parts of the Mount Subasio region.