St. Francis Way - Gibbo

Further up from the hamlet of Baucca, I turned off the main road and headed into the hills on a small winding country road, travelling in and out of woodland, over open spaces through Pietralunga, down into a valley and straight into the medieval city of Gubbio.

Gubbio's origins are ancient as far back as the Stone Age. It was conquered in 2ndC BC by the Romans and at the time the city was named Iguvium. Around 20BC the Roman's built an amphitheatre with large blocks of limestone. Although now in ruins it remains the second-largest amphitheatre surviving in the world. There's enough of its original structure to imagine what it might have once looked like.

What brought Gubbio to prominence was the 1000 knights that joined the First Crusade into the Holy Land. It is said they were the first to penetrate the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem when the city was seized in 1099. A powerful city, Gubbio spent the following centuries in various wars with surrounding neighbours until it was rolled into the Kingdom of Italy in 1860.

Around the 15thC, a tin-glazed pottery industry known as maiolica emerged giving rise to Giorgio Andreoli, a renown and important potter of the Renaissance period. Giorgio became a citizen of Gubbio and became famous for inventing lusterware, metallic glaze that gave an iridescent effect, using red and gold. He was assisted by his brothers, Salimbene and Giovanni and upon his death the work was continued by his son Vicenzo.

To reach the Sant'Ubaldo Basilica on top of Mount Ingino, I had to take a cable car that is, if you could call it that. The contraption was a cross between a bucket and a topless bird cage. There was only space for two people, standing up with the railings at chest level. At 2,953ft (900m) above ground level, I was thankful it was only a short 6 minutes ride.

The Basilica is set atop a plateau with views across the entire valley and the Apennine Mountains beyond. It houses the body of 12thC Bishop Ubaldo Baldassini, patron saint of Gubbio, in a glass sarcophagus that is kept atop the main altar on a marble plinth. There is an adjacent convent and both were built in the early 1500s. Once richly decorated in Baroque style, much of it was destroyed after the bombings of WWII. Choosing to hike back down, I followed a zig-zag trail through forestry straight into town.

This trail is used each year on May 15th, St Ubaldo Day, for a running event called Corsa dei Ceri (the Ceri is a heraldic emblem on Umbria's coat of arms). The race consists of three teams each dressed in yellow, blue or black tops with white pants and red belts and neckbands. Each team represents one of three saints: St Ubald, St George or St Anthony the Great. The race requires the teams to run up the mountain to the basilica carrying a statue of their saint, mounted on a wooden octagonal prism. The statue measures 13ft (4m) tall and weighing 617lb (280kg).

Legend has it that around 1220, St Francis of Assisi was living in Gubbio where a fierce wolf appeared, terrorising the humans by attacking their livestock at first and later moving onto humans. Apparently no weapon was able to destroy it and those who tried were devoured by the wolf. With the city under siege, St Francis took leave to meet the wolf. As soon as the wolf saw him, it charged with its jaws wide open. St Francis making the sign of the Cross, demanded the wolf stop attacking at which point the wolf ceased his attack and docilely trotted up to St Francis laying at his feet, putting its head in St Francis' hands. A pact was made between St Francis and the wolf, that if it was fed by the people of Gubbio, it would cease any further attacks. The wolf lived for a further two years in peace. St Francis gave it an appropriate burial and later built the Church of St Francis of the Peace on the site. Apparently in 1872, when the church was being renovated, a skeleton of a wolf was found buried under a slab. It was reburied back inside.

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