Historic-Artistic heritage

The nature context of the “Olive Belt” is enhanced by a historic-artistic heritage of priceless value, which mixes together with the historic presence of olive tree cultivation, typical of Umbria. Assisi, Spello, Foligno, Trevi, Campello sul Clitunno, and Spoleto are the most important cultivation areas. But throughout the entire “Olive Belt” system, the landscape, art, and territory guarantee a stability of the integrity of the history and landscape.

Not just the Franciscan places or monastic retreats (with such magnificent examples as the Hermitage of the Carceri and the Hermitage of St. Anthony), but also the Benedictine Abbeys (San Masseo and San Benedetto in Assisi, San Silvestro in Spello, Sassovivo in Foligno, Santo Stefano and San Pietro in Trevi, and San Ponziano in Spoleto), and the countless Romanesque churches scattered along the medieval routes, form a unique whole which is an innate characteristic of the territorial organization.

The strong bond between the cultivation of the olive tree and the historic heritage is also characterized by a scattered network of castles, villas, and homes of rural origin, which contribute to making up the panorama of the Olive Belt. The first buildings to be built outside the towns were the dovecote towers (used for the production of “palombino” fertilizer from pigeon droppings), which are an unmistakable feature of the territory, rising up from the roofs of the countless rural houses. On the hills were constructed buildings used strictly for cultivating the olive groves, commonly called “chiuse”. But a significant historic and artistic record is provided by the presence of fortifications (Pissignano, Campello Alto, Poreta), historic, ancient mills, and magnificent villas. Among these are: Villa Vecchia, the house known as Le Loggie, Villa Fabri, the Monastery of S. Pietro, Villa Campello, Villa Spinelli and, near Spoleto, Villa Pianciani, bearing witness to a 17th-century planting of olive groves that is still perfectly intact today.

It is in the huge fortification work carried out on the Umbrian agricultural landscape that the olive tree, starting as a protected plant, became a heraldic tree, the symbol of the Franciscan message “Pax et Bonum” (Peace and Goodness) and Benedictine motto “Ora et labora” (Pray and labor). An archaic heraldic sign is the presence of the Oil Tower on the walls of Spoleto. According to tradition, it is from this tower that boiling oil was poured down on the army of Hannibal who, after his victory at Trasimeno, tried to take over the town, his original initial intention being that of marching on Rome; dissuaded by the resistance he encountered at Spoleto, Hannibal decided to change plans and headed, instead, toward the Piceno area. The episode is also mentioned by Carducci in his Barbarian Ode “Le fonti del Clitunno” (“Head-waters of the Clitumnus”).

But another heraldic sign is the olive tree that stands, as if it were a banner, atop the tower of the consular gate of Spello, as a reminder to all of the tree’s urban nature, as it was often contained within town walls or in “chiuse”, being the fruit of an artificial cultivation, not of spontaneous growth.