Gubbio

Gubbio
Comune
Città di Gubbio

Panorama of Gubbio from Viale Parruccini

Gubbio within the Province of Perugia
Gubbio

Location of Gubbio in Italy

Coordinates: 43°21′N 12°34′E / 43.350°N 12.567°E / 43.350; 12.567
Country Italy
Region Umbria
Province / Metropolitan city Perugia (PG)
Frazioni see list
Government
 • Mayor Filippo Mario Stirati (SEL)
Area
 • Total 525 km2 (203 sq mi)
Elevation 522 m (1,713 ft)
Population (31 December 2010)[1]
 • Total 32,998
 • Density 63/km2 (160/sq mi)
Demonym(s) Eugubini
Time zone CET (UTC+1)
 • Summer (DST) CEST (UTC+2)
Postal code 06024, 06020
Dialing code 075
Patron saint St. Ubaldus
Saint day May 16
Website Official website

Gubbio is a town and comune in the far northeastern part of the Italian province of Perugia (Umbria). It is located on the lowest slope of Mt. Ingino, a small mountain of the Apennines.

History

The city's origins are very ancient. The hills above the town were already occupied in the Bronze Age.[2] As Ikuvium, it was an important town of the ancient Umbrian people in pre-Roman times, made famous for the discovery there of the Eugubine (or Iguvine) Tables in 1444,[3] a set of bronze tablets that together constitute the largest surviving text in ancient Umbrian. After the Roman conquest in the 2nd century BC — it kept its name as Iguvium — the city remained important, as attested by its Roman theatre, the second-largest surviving in the world.

Gubbio became very powerful in the beginning of the Middle Ages. The town sent 1000 knights to fight in the First Crusade under the lead of count Girolamo Gabrielli, and according to an undocumented local tradition, they were the first to penetrate into the Holy Sepulchre when the city was seized (1099).

The following centuries were quite turbulent, and Gubbio was engaged in wars against the surrounding towns of Umbria. One of these wars saw the miraculous intervention of its bishop, St. Ubaldo Baldassini, who secured Gubbio an overwhelming victory (1151) and a period of prosperity. In the struggles of Guelphs and Ghibellines, the Gabrielli, such as the condottiero Cante de' Gabrielli da Gubbio (c. 1260 - 1335), were of the Guelph faction, supportive of the papacy; as Podestà of Florence, Cante exiled Dante Alighieri, ensuring his own lasting notoriety.

Gubbio maiolica by Giorgio Andreoli, famous for its "lustro" (reflections), 1525

In 1350 Giovanni Gabrielli, count of Borgovalle, a member of the most prominent noble family of Gubbio, seized communal power and became lord of Gubbio. However his rule was short, and he was forced to hand over the town to Cardinal Albornoz, representing the Church (1354).

A few years later, Gabriello Gabrielli, bishop of Gubbio, proclaimed himself again lord of Gubbio (Signor d’Agobbio). Betrayed by a group of noblemen which included many of his relatives, the bishop was forced to leave the town and seek refuge at his home castle at Cantiano.

With the decline of the political prestige of the Gabrielli family, Gubbio was thereafter incorporated into the territories of the Montefeltro. Federico da Montefeltro rebuilt the ancient Palazzo Ducale, incorporating in it a studiolo veneered with intarsia like his studiolo at Urbino.[4] The maiolica industry at Gubbio reached its apogee in the first half of the 16th century, with metallic lustre glazes imitating gold and copper.

Gubbio became part of the Papal States in 1631, when the family della Rovere, to whom the Duchy of Urbino had been granted, was extinguished. In 1860 Gubbio was incorporated into the Kingdom of Italy along with the rest of the Papal States.

The name of the Pamphili, a great papal family, originated in Gubbio then went to Rome under the pontificate of Pope Innocent VIII (1484–1492), and is immortalized by Velasquez and his portrait of Pope Innocent X.

Geography

Overview

The town is located in northern Umbria, near the border with Marche. The municipality borders Cagli (PU), Cantiano (PU), Costacciaro, Fossato di Vico, Gualdo Tadino, Perugia, Pietralunga, Scheggia e Pascelupo, Sigillo, Umbertide and Valfabbrica.[5]

Frazioni

The frazioni (territorial subdivisions) of the comune of Gubbio are the villages of: Belvedere, Biscina, Branca, Burano, Camporeggiano, Carbonesca, Casamorcia-Raggio, Cipolleto, Colonnata, Colpalombo, Ferratelle, Loreto, Magrano, Mocaiana, Monteleto, Monteluiano, Nogna, Padule, Petroia, Ponte d'Assi, Raggio, San Benedetto Vecchio, San Marco, San Martino in Colle, Santa Cristina, Scritto, Semonte, Spada, Torre Calzolari and Villa Magna.

Main sights

A "porta dei morti" that has been turned into a window.
Gubbio Roman Theatre at sunset.
Palazzo dei Consoli.
Roof panorama of Gubbio.
Sunlight streams through the rose window of Piazza S. Giovanni.
Stairs in the historic town.

The historical centre of Gubbio has a decidedly medieval aspect: the town is austere in appearance because of the dark grey stone, narrow streets, and Gothic architecture. Many houses in central Gubbio date to the 14th and 15th centuries, and were originally the dwellings of wealthy merchants. They often have a second door fronting on the street, usually just a few inches from the main entrance. This secondary entrance is narrower, and a foot or so above the actual street level. This type of door is called a porta dei morti (door of the dead) because it was proposed that they were used to remove the bodies of any who might have died inside the house. This is almost certainly false, but there is no agreement as to the purpose of the secondary doors. A more likely theory is that the door was used by the owners to protect themselves when opening to unknown persons, leaving them in a dominating position.

Among most visited buildings and sites in the city are:

Culture

Corsa dei Ceri.

Gubbio is home to the Corsa dei Ceri, a run held every year always on the 15th day of May, in which three teams, devoted to St. Ubaldo (the patron saint of Gubbio), S. Giorgio, and S. Antonio, run through throngs of cheering supporters (clad in the distinctive colours of yellow, blue and black, with white trousers and red belts and neckbands), up much of the mountain from the main square in front of the Palazzo dei Consoli to the basilica of St. Ubaldo, each team carrying a statue of their saint mounted on a wooden octagonal prism, similar to an hour-glass shape 4 metres tall and weighing about 280 kg (617 lb).

The race has strong devotional, civic, and historical overtones and is one of the best-known folklore manifestations in Italy; the Ceri were chosen as the heraldic emblem on the coat of arms of Umbria as a modern administrative region.

A celebration like the Corsa dei Ceri is held also in Jessup, Pennsylvania. In this small town the people carry out the same festivities as the residents of Gubbio do by "racing" the three statues through the streets during the Memorial Day weekend. This remains an important and sacred event in both towns.

Gubbio was also one of the centres of production of the Italian pottery (maiolica), during the Renaissance. The most important Italian potter of that period, Mastro Giorgio, was active in Gubbio during the early 16th century.

The city is the setting for the popular story of St. Francis and the Wolf of Gubbio, recorded in the medieval Fioretti di San Francesco.

The Gubbio Layer

Gubbio is also known among geologists and palaeontologists as the discovery place of what was at first called the "Gubbio layer", a sedimentary layer enriched in iridium that was exposed by a roadcut outside of town. This thin, dark band of sediment marks the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary, also known as the K–T boundary or K–Pg boundary, between the Cretaceous and Paleogene geological periods about 66 million years ago, and was formed by infalling debris from the gigantic meteor impact probably responsible for the mass extinction of the dinosaurs. Its iridium, a heavy metal rare on Earth's surface, is plentiful in extraterrestrial material such as comets and asteroids. It also contains small globules of glassy material called tektites, formed in the initial impact. Discovered at Gubbio, the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary is also visible at many places all over the world. The characteristics of this boundary layer support the theory that a devastating meteorite impact, with accompanying ecological and climatic disturbance, was directly responsible for the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event.

Gubbio in fiction

Saint Francis with the wolf of Gubbio, panel by Sassetta.

One of the town's most celebrated citizens is the wolf of Gubbio, who was tamed by St. Francis of Assisi and whose legend is related in the 14th-century Fioretti.

In Hermann Hesse's novel Steppenwolf (1927) the isolated and tormented protagonist – a namesake of the wolf – consoles himself at one point by recalling a scene that the author might have beheld during his travels: "(...) that slender cypress on the hill over Gubbio that, though split and riven by a fall of stone, yet held fast to life and put forth with its last resources a new sparse tuft at the top".[6]

The town is a backdrop in Antal Szerb's novel Journey by Moonlight (1937) as well as Danièle Sallenave's fr:Les Portes de Gubbio (1980).

Since 2000 the TV series Don Matteo has been shot on location in Gubbio, where the title character ministers to his parish while solving crimes.

Anna Moroni, a popular cook on the Italian daytime TV series "La Prova del Cuoco" discusses Gubbio in many of her TV segments. She often cooks dishes from the region on TV, and she featured Gubbio in her first book.

International relations

Twin towns – Sister cities

Gubbio is twinned with:

See also

References

  1. ↑ Population data from Istat
  2. ↑ Malone, C.A.T.; S.K.F. Stoddart (1994). Territory, Time and State. The archaeological development of the Gubbio basin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  3. ↑ Poultney, J. W. Bronze Tables of Iguvium 1959
  4. ↑ The Gubbio studiolo is reassembled in its entirety at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Federico's father, Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, and his daughter Agnese da Montefeltro were born in Gubbio.
  5. ↑ 42390 Gubbio on OpenStreetMap
  6. ↑ Herman Hesse, Steppenwolf, chapter 1. ("For Madmen Only")
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