Perugia Sotterranea

Beneath the cathedral side of Piazza IV Novembre, Perugia preserves a buried district spanning twenty-five centuries: the Etruscan acropolis with a temple terrace of mortarless travertine, a Roman street rutted by cartwheels, a domus marked by civil-war fire, and the medieval canons' world above.

Why it matters

Most Italian underground sites show you a wall or a cistern; this one lays out the stratigraphy of a capital city in sequence. The excavation lies under the cathedral and canons' quarter of the Isola San Lorenzo complex, on the acropolis of Etruscan and then Roman Perugia. Its remains document twenty-five centuries of construction, including terracing walls, the paving of the ancient main street and traces of the war that made Perugia Roman. The archaeological site forms part of the Isola San Lorenzo complex, alongside the cathedral, Chapter Museum and cloisters.

What to notice

The archaeological layers include a sacred building of the seventh century BC dedicated to the goddess Uni, whom the Romans knew as Juno; above it rises a second-century BC temple terrace, its retaining walls of perfectly cut travertine blocks laid without mortar, with the north face rising more than fifteen metres above the ancient city. A stretch of the ancient decumanus preserves paving stones grooved by cart wheels, and beside it a first-century BC domus keeps its impluvium and cocciopesto floors; the walls carry the scorching of the 40 BC fire that accompanied Octavian's capture of the city. On the medieval level, later builders used the Etruscan retaining wall as foundations and the sacred area as the canons' cellar, the origin of the nearby street name via delle cantine, and the canonica above hosted papal courts and five conclaves between 1216 and 1305.

Context and history

The acropolis beneath the cathedral was Perugia's point of origin, which is why the temple district, the Roman street grid and the medieval religious quarter all converged here. The Perusine War of 41-40 BC, when the citizens resisted Octavian and the town fell to siege and fire, left its physical trace in the burnt masonry and its epigraphic aftermath in the Augustan formula Augusta Perusia that recurs across the city's monuments. The medieval canons of San Lorenzo built their houses and storeyed cellars against the ancient walls, and the chapter's palace played host to the conclaves that elected Honorius III, Celestine V and Clement V among others in the early fourteenth century. Known as Perugia Sotterranea, the excavation forms part of the Isola San Lorenzo complex alongside the Chapter Museum, cloisters and loggia of Braccio Fortebracci, revealing remains sealed beneath the growing city for centuries.