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Between the Tevere brook and Bolsena lake, in the green latium countryside, on the top of a clay hill, rises the tiny city’Civita di Bagnoregio’. 

Civita appears isolated on a cliff spur to reign supreme over the around valley and, thanks to this isolation, the town shows intact its medieval architectonical structure. 

Joined to Bagnoregio, and to the world, through only one bridge, Civita appears in an unreal isolation due to landslip series and downfall of argillaceous ground that the whole city is built and that is still in peril. 

The History of Civita and Bagnoregio links each to other and the legend wants that Longobardi’s king Desiderio named the town Bagnoregium after he was there to cure significant disease with local thermal water ( Bagnoregio is a word composed by bagno ( means : bath ) and regio ( regal, king ) ). 

The urban planning of the city is of Etruscan origin, constituted from ortogonal alleys as Etruscan and later roman use, while the whole architectonic has medioeval and rinascimentale styles.  Several sculptures of medieval age, relating to buildings wiped out for continuous landslips are inglobated on the arc and in the wall to the sides of the town access gate. 

the center of the village of Civita is constituted from San Donato square, on which the cathedral dome rises.  The cathedral was built in centuries VII – VIII, over a more ancient pagan temple.  The building was dilated in the XI XII when a bell tower was built too.  In origin the cathedral needed to be faced from a porch, today destroyed, like us testifies the rests of two columns placed the cover.  Inside, the building, has three naves splitted by columns of medieval origin. 

Always in San Donato square, on the left of the bell tower, there’s a passage that leads to the building of medieval jails, while on the southern side of the square we have’Via della Maest’ where we will see bits of everyday longobard sculptures.  At the end of this road there were the gate of the Maest, fell down with the church of’Santa Maria della Maest’ after a landslip in 1695.  From there, a narrow lane came down to the water sources of Civita, in particular to source of the Columns and in the zone called’dell’Uncino’ ( hook ), where, for the legend, was found the thermal source from which Bagnoregium name derived.

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