On the top of a sunny hill, overlooking the Tiber valley, the Clitunno and the Topino; surrounded by the Martani Mountains and the Subasio (the mountain of Assisi), Montefalco is a small nest not of an eagle, but of a hawk, as recalled by the emblem at the top of the Town Hall, which pays tribute not only to the splendid panoramic position but also to its history.
In the Middle Ages, the town was one of the bases of the emperor Frederick II of Swabia, who practiced falconry here. Much of the medieval period remains in Montefalco: the circular walls interspersed with towers; the narrow and intriguing alleys; houses and small palaces leaning against each other, the ancient neighborhoods, and the artistic weaving workshops. Entering through the merloned gate of S. Agostino, one moves along the main street, Corso Mameli, on which the twelfth-century Church of the Augustinians faces, with imposing trusses and precious frescoes from the 1300s and 1400s inside, and a dense series of houses and noble palaces that emanate the warm tones of the local stone (called San Terenziano), with which they were built.
In a few minutes, you reach the large, airy circular square of the Municipality, dominated by the gigantic bulk of the Town Hall (1270 AD), softened by a 15th-century loggia and adorned with a tower with a panoramic terrace, from where the view spans 360 degrees, capturing successively Spoleto, Trevi, Foligno, Spello, Assisi, and Perugia.
The daily hustle and bustle culminates in the square, helped along by charming wine shops and small restaurants (we are in the land of the prized Sagrantino), shops selling typical products and traditional crafts. But the highlight of Montefalco appears just a few dozen meters away, on via Ringhiera dell’Umbria: the 14th-century Church-Museum of St. Francis, in whose apse Benozzo Gozzoli frescoed, in 1452, twelve touching scenes from the life of the Saint, creating the most important Franciscan pictorial cycle after that of Giotto in Assisi and marking a fundamental stage in the transition from late Gothic painting to that of the early Renaissance. Among the many treasures, the church also houses a sixteenth-century painting by Perugino and, in the basement, the ancient Franciscan cellars, opened to the public in 2006: the stone vats for pressing the Sagrantino and the space for the presses can be clearly recognized. A 1692 Municipal Statute mentioned them as the largest in Montefalco.
