Perugia district

storia

The top of the hill of Perugia was inhabited from the 9th century B.C.. A first structure of town is present from the 6th century B.C., and another interesting settlement has been recently discovered in Ponte della Pietra, on the important Perugia-Orvieto axis.
Perugia became a very important Etruscan centre of the "dodecapoli", near the border - the Tiber - between the Etruscan territory and the Umbrian part of the region.
The splendid Etruscan civilization is testified by significant remains such as the Hypogeum of the Volumni, those of San Mannno and Villa Sperandio, and the necropolis of Strozzacapponi.
In the 3th century B.C. the Romans conquered Umbria, and, with the new regional organization established by the emperor Augustus, Perugia and its territory joined up with the "regio septima", which included all the Etruscan area; in the 3th century Umbria was annexed to Tuscia by the emperor Diocleziano.
Christianity penetrated easily into the region running along the roads built by the Romans.
Interesting religious buildings belonging to the first Christian settlements are the Church of San Angelo (6th century) and the Church of San Pietro, built in the 10th century by a Perugian nobleman who later became a Benedectine monk.
On the fall of the Roman Empire the territory of Perugia was invaded and devasted and devasted by the barbarians - Totila destroyed the town in 547.
All the human settlements were seriously damaged and the countryside, invaded by the malaria, became depopulated and wild.
Perugia became an independent city-state by the 11th century, and in the 14th century it ruled over a vast part of Umbria. It was a Commune on the Guelph party and mantained relations with the Papal State, accepting its protectorate but not its direct rule.
During the Middle Ages the politcal and social life was characterized by violent struggles between rival faction contending for the power: first the struggle between the noble groups (Beccherini) and the popoular ones (Raspanti), then those between the city's leading families of Oddi and Baglioni, whose supremacy continued until the 15th century, when Perugia fell under the sway, first of Braccio Fortebraccio da Montone, and then of the papal legates.
The latter consolidated their position under the Farnese Pope Paul III.
Papal rule continued virtually unchanged until the Risorgimento - except brief interludes during the Napoleonic occupation - and the formation of the Kingdom of Italy.