The 13th-c Sant’Andrea church in Spello has direct links to St. Francis in Assisi and the Franciscans. First historical reference to the church dedicated to the apostle, St. Andrew, dates to the early 11th century and in the 13th century, the church – under the rule of the Bishop of Spoleto – was conceded to…
Keep your eyes open as you walk through Spello so as to take in the hints of the splendor of the Roman colony, Hispellum – and they’re even in the churches. In Santa Maria Maggiore, the holy water font at the entryway is a splendid marble Roman funerary monument: As you exit the church, look to your…
Once again, my mantra “only in Italy” is most fitting: after all, where else might you find the splendid mosaic floor of a Roman villa when digging out a parking lot? It happened in 2005 in Spello when they were about to enlarge the parking lot not far from the glorious Roman city gate of the…
We’ll explore Spello together in my next ZOOM on November 21st – and until then, I’ll be sharing blog notes as introduction; after all, there’s so much to share on this medieval hill town treasure. Spello – pink limetone Umbrian medieval hilltown gem – nestles into the southern flank of Mount Subasio. Viewed from the…
Quiz for the day: what is a “trunk-shaker with a reversed umbrella interceptor”? Here it is: It’s the mechanized tool used by the Trabalza-Marinucci family to harvest the olives of their three thousand trees in the Bevagna-area hills. Thanks to mechanization, this family and their workers (five people in all) can harvest the olives in…
When we first harvested olives here in the Umbrian countryside in an icy December, 1976, the picking was all done by hand. Basket around the waist, you’d reach up the olive branch and strip down the olives towards the basket. (A few leaves might slide along, too, but they’d be separated out at the mill).…
November is the month of the olive oil harvest all over Italy – and this year, it’s my month to focus on olive oils, subject of my two ZOOM presentations (- and you can see all my presentations to date here). My first presentation – Part One of Umbria’s Liquid Gold: Olive Oil– focussed on…
Umbria’s “liquid gold,” olive oil, is world-renowned and celebrated by the umbri in glorious festivals. These feste celebrate the olio nuovo (the “new oil”, that olive oil just pressed) at harvest time which takes place in the late fall/winter months, that is, from October to the end of November. Spello, called “la citta dell’olio,” is center of…
Since ancient times, man has used resinous substances for lighting and the pressing of woodland berries and animal and vegetable fats as a means of illuminating the darkness. As of the 4th century, olive oil was used for lighting. Oil lamps reached Rome via Magna Grecia (that area of southern Italy colonized by the Greeks…
People in the eastern Mediterranean have been grinding olives for oil for the last 6,000-8,000 years. and wild olives, which originated in Asia Minor, were collected by Neolithic people as early as the 8th millennium B.C. The oldest testament of olive cultivation was found in Palestine (Bronze Age, 3500 B.C.): a couple of olive pits and charred olive wood…