What is Allerona known for?

Built 1275 as Orvieto's bulwark toward Chiusi, destroyed by Charles V at the end of the fifteenth century. Two Roman milestones and paved sections of the Cassia and Traiana Nova survive in the commune's fields. Stone houses without plaster, two medieval gates, an urban grid that has held its shape since 1275.

Allerona is a comune in the province of Terni, Umbria region of Italy, about 91 kilometers from Terni.

Umbria · Terni

Allerona

A stone borgobetween the Paglia valley and the Valdichiana, an Orvieto outpost whose Monaldeschi castle fell to Charles V.

91 km / 57 mi

Nearest hub (Terni)

1,688

Population

Apr–Oct

Best time to visit

Recognised as

Borghi più belli d'Italia

Why come

Allerona sitson a ridge between the Paglia valley and the Valdichiana, fifty kilometers southwest of Perugia and twenty north of Orvieto. The site was a Roman waystation called vicus Lerona, crossed by the Via Cassia and the Via Traiana Nova between Rome and Chiusi. Paved sections and two milestones still surface in the surrounding fields. The medieval castle, built in 1275 by the Monaldeschi and Filippeschi families as Orvieto's northern bulwark, was destroyed at the end of the fifteenth century by Charles V and rebuilt afterward. In 1595 the community freed itself from Orvieto and the Monaldeschi rule and wrote its own statutes. The centro storico keeps its original urban fabric: stone houses without plaster, two surviving gates called Porta del Sole and Porta della Luna, and a small grid of lanes that has not changed shape in five hundred years.

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Gallery

7 photos · scroll →

Known for

Chiesa di Santa Maria Assunta
Twelfth-century Romanesque church on the central square, renovated in neo-Gothic style 1892-1897 with terracotta pulpit and Viligiardi fresco cycle.
Chiesa di San Michele Arcangelo
Twelfth-century church, the second pole of the medieval religious layout alongside Santa Maria Assunta.
Borgo medievale
Unplastered stone houses, two surviving gates Porta del Sole and Porta della Luna, fragments of the 1275 Monaldeschi walls.
Chiesa della Madonna dell'Acqua
Small octagonal rural church from the early 1700s, built beside a spring once held to be miraculous.
Sito archeologico di Sant'Ansano
Remains of two stone and brick funerary monuments from the second century AD, on the line of the old Roman road.

When to visit

Best months · Apr–Oct

Best
Hot or crowded
Quiet
Mostly closed

April through June brings the Paglia valley green and evenings cool enough to walk the ridge after dinner. September and October are the gold months. July and August reach into the mid-thirties in the lower valleys; the ridge at 472 meters stays a few degrees cooler, but the unplastered stone holds heat into the night and the centro storico empties between two and six. November through March is quiet. Some trattorie close. Winter fog rises off the Paglia and wraps the borgo; from Porta della Luna at first light, only the bell tower of Santa Maria Assunta breaks the surface.