Orvieto and the cliff: they have always been one and the same. Needing no defensive walls, the city developed freely within. But the restrictions imposed by the very nature of the cliff meant that as time passed the city also grew upon itself, one phase on top of the other. So as you wander through the streets of Orvieto, you never lose touch with its history. Signs and clues are everywhere, piled on top of each other, and one step after the other, the succession of centuries and generatone unfolds before you. The walk you are taking is through three thousand years of history. Let the city tell its story.

ORVIETO ETRUSCAN The earliest evidence of life on the cliff dates back to the Iron Age. But it was the Etruscans, fascinated by the site, who settled there and transformed it into a city, Velzna, which developed between the 7th and the 3rd cent. B.C. It reached its heyday between the 6th and 5th cent. B.C., as attested to by the signs of a frenetic building activity which have come to light. Initially spared from the socio-economic crisis of the 5th cent., Velzna was invaded and razed to the ground by the Romans in 264 B.C. The inhabitants were transferred to Volsinii Novi, now Bolsena.

ORVIETO MEDIEVAL Abandoned up to the 6th century A.D., with the Barbarian invasions the cliff once more became an ideal place for settlements. This was when the slow process of reconstruction began. Even then the city was called "urbs vetus" ("old city"), from which the name Orvieto derives. Around the year 1000 the city had a Lombard feudal system, but as early as 1137 the Comune (free municipal corporation) was instituted, and reached the height of its splender between the 13th and 14th centuries. The population of the city was co was comprised of a few nobles, a great number of artisans, shop-keepers and farmers who owned small lots of land.

MAURIZIO, THE FIRST AUTOMATION TIME-KEEPER Maurizio, a bronz almost life-size statue, dates to 1347. He kept track of the working hours of those who were building the Cathedral.

ORVIETO AND AFTERWARDS Debilitated by the struggles between the papal and imperial factions, and the Black Death of 1348, Orvieto at the dawn of modern times was a weak Signoria, shortly to be annexed by the Papal States. In the 14th and 15th centuries however conditions began to improve. The residence of a number of popes, the city regained its splendor of old. It was then that outstanding architects changed the face of the city. The same thing happened, but to a lesser extent, in later centuries and, renewed vigor, immediately after the annexation of the city to the Kingdom of Italy in 1860.

COMPLETION OF THE CATHEDRAL Construction work on the Cathedral draws to a close. The finishing touches include the marble altar of the Magi (Simone Mosca and Raffaello da Montelupo) and the great Visitation altar (Sirnone and Francesco Mosca) The wooden choir stalls are moved to the transept aste. And in 1590 the last spires are completed.

ORVIETO UNDERGROUND The story Orvieto tells continues in the endless dark and twisted bowels of the city. During its almost 3000 years of history, as the city was rising up on top, a companion "city" was being dug into the soft tufa of the cliff below.

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