#uniquedestinations
Spello is on the southern side of Mount Subasio, between Assisi and Foligno. The ancient town centre of Umbrian origin, “Hispellum”, from the first century BC, was an important Roman town. The town features significant and remarkable remnants from the Roman period. These remnants exist alongside its more recent mediaeval urban layout.
The town of Spello
Mediaeval walls enclose Spello, which is built on Roman foundations. These include three Roman gates (Porta Consolare, Porta di Venere and Arch of Augustus) and traces of three more. The town also incorporates the remains of a Roman amphitheatre. The main points of interest from its mediaeval past are Palazzo Comunale Vecchio, built in 1270; Palazzo dei Canonici (which houses the town’s art gallery); and the magnificent church of Santa Maria Maggiore (known from 1159).
The original inhabitants of the town likely constructed the church atop an ancient temple dedicated to Juno and Vesta. Its facade has a Romanesque portal and a 13th-century bell tower. The frescoes inside the church are works by Perugino (1512). However, if you walk the streets of the town, what will impress you the most are the flowers that are everywhere. They are in houses and in public spaces and buildings. The relation of the inhabitants with flowers could be traced to the history and tradition of the town.
Infiorate di Spello
Part of the village tradition is the world-famous Infiorate di Spello. This is an event that takes place every year on the occasion of the Corpus Domini feast (the ninth Sunday after Easter). On that night, almost a thousand people, organised in infioratori groups, work tirelessly to create carpets and pictures made of flowers along the town’s narrow streets. The creations honour the passage of the Body of Christ, carried in procession by the bishop.
The result is a path of about 1.5 km of extraordinarily colourful and refined floral paintings. They picture special occasions and institutional political and religious figures such as popes and Italian presidents, as well as saints such as Lourdes. Spello’s Infiorate creators compose their carpets using flowers collected in the wild. While there is no restriction in the use of other parts of the plants, like leaves and berries, they prefer the use of petals only, either fresh or dried.
In Spello the tradition of placing on the ground floral elements on the occasion of religious events is documented for the first time on 15 June 1602. An accounting register of the historical archive of Santa Maria Maggiore documents the flower creations for the first time. The iconographic evidence relating to the Ιnfiorate in Spello dates back to the early 1900s. Benvenuto Crispoldi (1886-1923), painter and mayor of Spello, depicted in one of his paintings the passage of the Corpus Domini procession over the infiorate.
Visit Spello during Infiorate
The tradition is strong to this day and attracts many visitors each year from Italy and other countries. If you want to visit this unique destination during Infiorate, you could find all the information you need on the festival’s official website (infiorataspello.it).
*[Photo at the top by sterlinglanier Lanier on Unsplash]
