The Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta and the Well of San Patrizio.

Orvieto - Each of us, traveling to Rome, was attracted by the town on the tuff rock and by the glow of light reflected on the mosaics of the facade of the Cathedral. We decide to go up with the funicular which, from the valley car park, is cheap and frequent. Magnified by the magnificence of the Cathedral, we immediately go to the square, where the facade stands on an artistic pavement.

Built by order of Pope Nicholas IV, first of the Franciscan order, from 1290 to host the corporal of the miracle of Bolsena, where during the religious service a host bled, the best master builders worked there for four centuries: Giovanni da Uguccione, who conferred an early Gothic architecture, Mantani who sculpted the façade, Andrea and Nicola Pisano, who completed the lower part, Ippolito Scalza who completed three of the four apical spiers and Orcagna, who sculpted the polychrome rose window. All the mosaics, except the fourteenth century of the Nativity of Mary which is housed in the London Museum, were redone in later periods. Having explored the external representations, each narrating a sacred story, we proceed to visit the interior. This, divided into three naves, with the ceiling decorated with wooden trusses, by pillars with bands of travertine and basalt, welcomes us harmoniously and elegantly. We walk along the internal sides to admire the 16th century paintings of the Corporal and San Brizio Chapels, where Sienese artists such as Beato Angelico, Benozzo Gozzoli and Luca Signorelli worked. In the fresco of the Lamentation, the diaries of the time write, he painted the face of his son, who died from the plague. You reach the frescoed Presbytery, up to the vaults, with depictions of the Annunciation and Visitation of Maria by Ugolino del Prete illuminated by the splendid fourteenth-century artistic glass window by Di Bonino. Before leaving, we cannot leave out the musical instrument 'par excellence': the monumental organ of the end of the 16th century forged by Palmieri and Fulgenzi, in conjunction with the wooden decorations of the case and the choir loft by I. Scalzo. Inspired by the visit of such magnificence, we stroll through the medieval quarter where the nineteenth-century clock tower in light and warm bricks still marks the hours and is the fulcrum of the four districts, Serancia, Olmo, Corsica and Stella. At the belvedere that overlooks the city walls, two doors open the way to the steep stairs that plunge down to the 52 m of the Pozzo di San Patrizio. Legend has it that the Irish monk went down there to pray and that every unbeliever, when he reached the bottom, found the Christian faith there. Historical documents, on the other hand, lead the cave, dug into the tuff, to Pope Clement VII who, having fled the sack of Rome, had the hiding place built, fearing other sieges. Here the inhabitants used to stock up on water, going down and up through the two distinct ramps. Happy, we have lunch in an inn with excellent pappardelle with sauce and delicious local cheeses, seasoned with pistachios or chilli, served melted with grated truffle.