In the heart of Tuscia Viterbo, a small settlement built on tuff has resisted the erosion of the surrounding landscape for centuries. History, fragility, and beauty of one of Italy’s most evocative places, which has become a symbol of a heritage to be known and protected. There are places you visit and places that, even before you reach them, manage to create an emotion. Civita di Bagnoregio belongs to the second category.
It is observed from afar and for a few moments it seems difficult to understand where reality ends and imagination begins. A small village emerges above a tuff spur, surrounded by an expanse of gullies that time, wind, and water slowly continue to transform. The houses seem to cling to the rock. Around, the landscape falls into the Valley of the Calanques.
The long pedestrian bridge that today represents the only ordinary access route to the village connects Civita to the rest of the territory. It is this image that has made Civita di Bagnoregio famous throughout the world. But behind that photograph there is a much more complex story. A story of ancient civilizations, earthquakes, erosion, abandonment, and rebirth. A story that tells, perhaps better than many others, the fragile and extraordinary relationship between humanity and Italy. In the heart of Tuscia.
Civita is a hamlet of the municipality of Bagnoregio, in the province of Viterbo. We are in northern Lazio, in Tuscia, which still preserves an extraordinary heritage of villages, Etruscan necropolises, Renaissance palaces, historic gardens, volcanic lakes, and rural landscapes. Rome is not far away, but arriving in this part of Lazio, the perception changes. The major arteries gradually give way to roads that cross hills and countryside. Orvieto is not far away.
Lake Bolsena belongs to the same large geographical landscape. It is a borderland, where Lazio, Umbria and Tuscany almost seem to meet. And it is precisely here that Civita suddenly appears before the visitor. Isolated. Silent. Almost unreal. The ancient origins. The history of the area has its roots in antiquity. The territory was affected by the Etruscan presence and subsequently by the Roman one. The elevated position offered favorable characteristics for settlement, while communication routes connected this area with other important centers in central Italy. Over the centuries the urban core developed adapting to the particular conformation of the land.
But that same rock on which Civita had been built would determine the fate of the village. The city above a fragile land. To understand Civita you have to look under his houses. The village stands on a cliff made of volcanic materials superimposed on more friable layers. The action of water, atmospheric agents and ground movements has progressively shaped the entire landscape. The Calanchi Valley extends around the cliff. It’s a spectacular scenery.
Ridges, carvings and clay walls draw a landscape that seems to change with light. But the beauty of the gullies comes from the same phenomenon that makes Civita fragile. Erosion. The ground in fact continues to transform. Slowly, but continuously. It is this geological instability that has contributed over the centuries to the progressive isolation of the town. The city that lost its streets: Today we are used to imagining Civita connected to the world through its long pedestrian bridge. In the past the situation was different.
The village was part of a larger urban system and had connections that over time have been modified or erased by natural phenomena. Landslides and earthquakes have profoundly affected the history of the area. The 1695 earthquake, which severely affected the area, was particularly significant. Over the centuries, the progressive deterioration of connections and the difficulties of daily life contributed to depopulation. Many residents moved to Bagnoregio. Civita slowly became an increasingly small and isolated place.
The city that died by definition that would help make Civita famous arrived in the twentieth century. The writer Bonaventura Tecchi, originally from Bagnoregio, called it the city that dies.
It was a powerful expression. He described a village that seemed destined to slowly disappear along with the cliff on which it had been built. For many years that image accompanied Civita. But today it almost has a paradoxical meaning. The city that seemed destined to die has become one of the best-known Italian villages internationally and in Italian identity.
