The city of Orvieto, Umbria, Italy. Founded by the Etruscans in the VIII century BC on a butte of tufa rock for its defensibility, it later became a papal residence in the middle ages.
The city of Orvieto, Umbria, Italy. Founded by the Etruscans in the VIII century BC on a butte of tufa rock for its defensibility, it later became a papal residence in the middle ages.
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The city of Orvieto sits on a butte of tufa rock due to its location in what was an extinguished volcanic crater, Central Italy being the northernmost part of a series of volcanoes that stretch from Sicily.
Thanks to its impregnable position on top of steep walls of rock, it had an enviable defensible position which was exploited first by the Etruscan civilisation, when Orvieto was part of a confederation of cities in central Italy. Later in the middle ages, Orvieto became a powerful city state and was often chosen as a temporary residence by the papal courts.
Thanks to this, Orvieto boasts many monuments from the late middle ages and early modern era, like its [Romanesque Gothic cathedral](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/5TvXoxo2yUs/maxresdefault.jpg), built from the late 1200s to house the reliquary of the miracle of Bolsena (a miracle used by the catholic church to affirm the dogma of transubstantiation, i.e. that the holy wafer turns into the flesh and blood of Christ during mass) or [the Papal palaces](https://www.orvietoviva.com/nuovosito/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Palazzo-del-popolo-Orvieto11.jpg).
Its defensibility was further enhanced by engineering works like the [well of St Patrick](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/5TvXoxo2yUs/maxresdefault.jpg), a well carved into the soft tufa rock during the 1500s to supply the city with drinking water in case of siege.
The soft nature of the tufa rock means that ever since its foundation, the people of Orvieto dug underground tunnels under the city for storage, defensive purposes, etc. 25 km of galleries have been mapped out so far.