Historic centre of Perugia

March 31, 2025
Riccardo
1331

To see: town & cities

Historic centre of Perugia

The historic center of Perugia is an open-air museum, the beating heart of the city, the place where to breathe its past and find its oldest soul, a real fourteenth-century village among the most beautiful and loved in Italy.

The city life is very intense, mainly linked to the two historical universities: the University of Studies founded in 1308 and the University for Foreigners
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Perugia is bustling by day, but lively and cheerful even at night, so it deserves much more than a visit bites and escape to discover the most important monuments. Without forgetting the breathtaking panorama everywhere you look, made of hills, mountains and plains of amazing beauty.

Since the Middle Ages, the city has hosted enlightened intellectuals, important artists and even popes. All have left their mark through frescoes, sculptures and majestic architecture. Even today there are craft shops that resist the time, preserving and passing on ancient techniques of working ceramics, weaving and jewelry.

Those who live in Perugia are accustomed to going up and down, because the city was born on two hills. The main street of the historic center, the current Corso Vannucci, connected since the most distant times two hills, that "del Sole" to the north and colle Landone to the south. The flat areas were rather few, so that in the course of the centuries the inhabited area has been arranged along sides and depressions or on artificial spaces made by man. Piazza Matteotti is the most significant example: the Etruscan walls on the east side limited the expansion of the late medieval city on that side, so using the walls as a powerful support, was created the current flat space, Building pillars to support it.

The historic centre of Perugia is divided into several main areas. Comparing it to a leaf, the path of Corso Vannucci - from the Fontana Maggiore up to the belvedere of the Carducci Gardens - represents the main rib on which the side streets are inserted.

Until the thirteenth century the city remains within the Etruscan walls, but soon sees the need to expand the inhabited outside. So that are born the villages, until they extend on the land at that time sparsely inhabited: the village of Porta S. Susanna, that of Porta Eburnea, door S. Angelo, door S. Antonio, S. Giuliana, the Borgo Bello (now Corso Cavour), San Pietro and that of Porta Sole. The structure of the villages consists of a central conductor on which open alleys, like double comb. The construction of new medieval walls, which will include these settlements, they will become real districts.

The Corso is the widest street of the old town, but it's enough to enter one of the alleys that overlook it to enter a maze of passages, often narrow and a little dark, which well reflect the medieval urban fabric. The ancient names of some streets refer to the presence of craftsmen who contributed to the prosperity of Perugia. Via dei Lanari, for example, recalls one of the oldest arts in the city, while Via del Naspo recalls the arcolaio, that is the tool used to turn the skein into a ball of wool.
The toponymy is in some cases very suggestive, just think of Via delle Streghe, or it can allude to bonds of friendship as in the case of Via dello Struzzo, because this animal - sign of deep friendship between the Perugina countess Marianna Florenzi and King Ludwig I of Bavaria - lived in the garden overlooking the alley.

Another place among the most iconic and suggestive of the city is Piazza IV Novembre, symbol of social and cultural life of Perugia since the Middle Ages that still seems to embody the ancient role of meeting point and exchange, exactly as it happened in past centuries.

In the center of the square dominates the Fontana Maggiore - built between 1275 and 1278 by Nicola and Giovanni Pisano - which stands out for its circular structure with two basins in pink and white stone, Surmounted by a bronze basin with three nymphs holding an amphora from which water flows.
In the square there are also two of the most representative buildings of Perugia: Palazzo dei Priori and the Cathedral of San Lorenzo.

Palazzo dei Priori is a splendid example of Gothic architecture built between the thirteenth and fifteenth century, still home to the Town Hall and the National Gallery of Umbria, in which are preserved works of extraordinary value.

The Cathedral of San Lorenzo, built between the middle of the '300 and at the end of the '400, is characterized by the unfinished facade and an elegant typical internal structure with three naves.

We can therefore say that Perugia is one of the Italian cities in which history, art and traditions blend harmoniously with the liveliness of modern life, offering tourists the opportunity to explore its monuments, admire the works of art, Stroll through the medieval streets or attend its cultural events.