Ecomuseo del paesaggio olivato e dell'olio

Trevi's ecomuseum interprets the terraced hillsides as an open-air landscape of olive cultivation and heritage. Formally recognised by Regione Umbria in 2020, it reads the entire olive-clad town — its gardens, mills, sacred trees and stone channels — as one continuous exhibition of a landscape that FAO has ranked among agricultural heritage sites of world importance.

Why it matters

The regional council's decision no. 941 of 21 October 2020 gave Trevi's project official standing as an ecomuseum: a "diffuse museum" for the conservation, interpretation and enhancement of material and immaterial heritage in territories with strong historical, landscape and environmental identity. In Trevi that territory is exceptionally legible. The town sits at the centre of the Fascia Olivata Assisi-Spoleto, the olive belt that runs unbroken between the two cities, and it was Trevi that promoted the belt's candidatures: inscription in the national register of rural historical landscapes kept by Mipaaf, and FAO recognition as a GIAHS site — a globally important agricultural heritage system — achieved in 2018.

What to notice

The ecomuseum interprets the historic centre, olive groves and cultivated slopes as a connected landscape. Villa Fabri's garden descends between the walled medieval town and the countryside, while a botanical garden continues the site's interpretation of olive heritage. The medieval aqueduct carried water from the Fulcione spring across the slopes; historic mills such as the Frantoio Cardarelli, in use until 1920, remain among the houses. The ancient olive of Sant'Emiliano at Bovara, dated to antiquity through laboratory analysis, roots this history in the early centuries of the Common Era. The olive trees themselves are a lesson in variety: Moraiolo dominates locally, with Leccino, Frantoio, San Felice, Pendolino and Dolce Agogia beside it.

Context and history

Olive cultivation here is older than the town walls. Olives have been recovered from Etruscan tombs of the seventh century BC in the area, and Roman presses of the first century AD attest industrial-scale processing two thousand years ago. Terracing, pruning and harvest techniques passed down through generations made the economy that the ecomuseum now documents, and oil from Trevi's presses falls within the Umbria Colli Assisi-Spoleto protected designation. The TRAME NATURALI project, financed by the Umbria rural development programme 2014–2020, supported green connections through the territory and plans for an agricultural park focused on local plant biodiversity. The olive also carries the area's symbolic life — the branch as peace token, the sacred tree of Sant'Emiliano — which is exactly the "immaterial heritage" the ecomuseum's charter exists to keep alive.