Acquapendente on the Brigands' Path

The path goes on into the territory of Acquapendente where Luciano Fioravanti, the last of the great brigands of Tuscia, was born. Here Giovanni Erpita, a brigand from Latera who lived in the first half of the XIX century, was enchanted by a local girl and did not hesitate to take her away from her bridegroom and kill her so that she would have no other men. Acquapendente was an important resting place along the Via Francigena, settled during the early Middle Ages and linked to the glorious tradition
of the "Pugnaloni". These are large pictures made with flowers and leaves, portraying religious or allegorical subjects, which every year are taken in procession during the feast of the Madonna del Fiore (third Sunday in May) as a tribute to the miraculous blossoming of a dead cherry-tree that led the local people to revolt against Frederick i Barbarossa.
Pay a visit to the basilica cathedral of S.Sepolcro, with Romanic interiors and a façade re-built in the XVIII century, featuring a crypt that reminds the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem. Then the church of S.Francesco, embellished by a remarkable Gothic portal, and the Viscontini Palace, built in 1581 and designed by Ippolito Scalza.
The Julia de Jacopo tower - a massive remainder of the medieval fortifications - hosts the visitors' centre of the Monte Rufeno Nature Reserve and a section of the Civic Museum set up in the ancient bishop's palace.



The upper part of the town is dominated by the Clock tower, also known as "del Barbarossa", while on the main square dedicated to Girolamo Fabrizio (the great surgeon friend of Galileo Galilei) there is the new Town Hall, a massive building in Neoclassical style dating back to 1876.

Tuscia Mirabilis
photos from Iubilantes.it