The origin of his name, like the one of the other nine Italian villages named Cantalupo, is rather mysterious, and at least three hypotheses circulate on this name: the most fantastic wants that, in that area, when there was wind, they were heard howling wolves, and was therefore indicated as a place where the wolf sang (canta = sings; lupo = wolf). Another one refers to a predictive name, for which it could be called Castrum Lupi, from the name of Lupo (Wolf), descendant of the Antignano family. A third hypothesis, the most suggestive, considers the place as liminal of a vast territory dedicated to Janus (Torgiano, Limigiano, Giano dell’Umbria), whose name would be derived from Cantatus lucus, that is a sacred wood (to the same god) destined to transform from Cantaluco to Cantalupo.

Its first historical information dates to the Statute of Bevagna of the year 1500, which actually collects and rearranges provisions of much older statutes. Here Cantalupo is

named seven times as Castrum. But on the translation of the term it is good to underline that a castrum placed in height can certainly turn into a castellum (castle) as in the case of Castelbuono or consist of a turris (sighting tower) as in the case of Torre del Colle. A plain castrum, however, should be translated with terms such as “fortified camp” (not surprisingly, its origin is military) or, in Byzantine tradition, to “closed village”. In short, at first Cantalupo seems to have been a group of huts, arranged in a closed way close to a stream of water, and not a castle.

At the dawn of the 13th century it is probable that in its surroundings San Francesco (1181/82-1226) has passed through its movements between Assisi and Via Flaminia. The Franciscan hagiography (Tommaso from Celano, Fioretti) places in this regard in a locality near Cannara the episode of the “Preach to the Birds” by San Francesco. Today this episode is recalled by a small Holy Temple in Piandarca, just a short distance away from the Cantalupo.

As more accredited historians have observed, the reconstruction of that “Preach” is probably invented, while transit would not.

Between the 16^th and 18^th centuries the transformation of Cantalupo from castrum to villa (country village built around manor houses) took place. The refinement of its costumes is shown by two frescoes, dating back to the 16^th and 17^th century, located in the heart of the village. The first one reproduces an image of the Annunciation and is in the gallery of the house belonging today to Eulogio Franceschini. The second one, found in a niche inside an adjacent private house, shows in the center the Madonna and Child, San Sebastiano and San Rocco. The image of San Rocco, considered the protector of the pilgrims and the plagued, would suggest that in the area there was a monastic building or a little hospital although there are no documented traces. However, it is the pastoral visits of the six-eighteenth century bishops of Spoleto that attest to the growth of Cantalupo as a villa ever wider. From one of the numerous documents of the Diocesan Historical Archive of Spoleto, it is deduced that the “Villa Cantalupi” was equipped with a wheat dispenser and four churches: Beata Vergine dei Sette Dolori, Sant’ Angelo (San Michele Arcangelo), San Biagio and San Giovanni, with the addition of the church of Annunciazione in Montarone. The church of Beata Vergine dei Sette Dolori becomes in the course of time the church of Santa Maria Addolorata, while in the 20^th century the remains of the church of San Biagio gradually disappeared. Moreover, a villa must be able to count on the presence of great owners. If we know about reconstructions of the state of the souls of the longest time that in Cantalupo live at least two rich families (Luccioli Falconieri and Torti);it is confirmed by the eighteenth-century land registry Avellani by a list of the numerous cultivable and cultivated lands owned by the Luccioli in a vast area of plain and hills around the country.

During the 20^th century Cantalupo developed rapidly, reversing, by demographic weight and urban dimension, the relationship with Castelbuono, which is slowly but surely destined to lose inhabitants. The hilly settlement is becoming less and less functional, and this facilitates the greater comfort of the plain villages. The growth of Cantalupo is recorded in at least three spheres: in civil identity, political consciousness and infrastructural modernization.

Evidence of the first sphere is the commitment of the inhabitants to honour their own dead in the First World War, with a plaque, and, after the Second World War, with a monument to the fallen of both wars.

The liveliness of the political clashes is destined to awaken also around the musical passion that in the first half of the 20^th century fully involves the popular classes. At least since 1902 there have been reports of the fanfare of Cantalupo, composed only of brasses, as well as of a music school particularly crowded until 1926. The fanfare is the pride of the village: it enlivens popular and religious festivals, participates in weddings and funerals, is invited to play in the neighbouring villages. In 1927, during the fascist period, the toy breaks. Perhaps because of political differences (some musicians had remained socialist while others had joined the Regime) or only for personal reasons, two fanfare is formed: the Quick Fanfare and the Terrible Fanfare, which practice in two different cellars. But after a suspension of the musical institution in Cantalupo, in 1928 the reunified Fanfare, transformed into Banda, will resume the activity continuing to survive between ups and downs until 1958.

But it is on the level of the sense of belonging and social cohesion that the spirit of Cantalupo resists over time. In 1978 the Pro Loco Cantalupo-Castelbuono was established to promote the environmental and artistic beauty of the territory and to defend and propose popular traditions. From the beginning, his best-known initiative is the Sagra della Lumaca, born from the commitment of two passionate inhabitants, Giuseppe (known as Peppe) Pensa and Leonello Tordoni, and from the generous and voluntary effort of many women, among which Giacomina Tamburo. It takes place in the last week of August (from 2016 it is also proposed as “Lumache in Inverno”) in the large Centropolivalente of the village. As the Pro Loco website says, “Sagra della Lumaca has become a gastronomic and cultural reference point for the region and it is one of its most interesting manifestations thanks to the ability to convey the values of the Umbrian tradition. From the few kilos of snails collected by the inhabitants in the countryside of Cantalupo, today, during the Festival, more than 80 quintals of snails are cooked. At the Sagra della Lumaca more than 150 volunteers from the village and neighbouring ones work and has a turnout of more than ten thousand people. Since 1995 Cantalupo is one of the fifteen cities of the snail, scattered throughout Italy, from Sicily to Piedmont, which have as reference point the National Association of Heliciculture”.

The Pro Loco, however, does not limit itself to this. In 2010 it becomes a supporter of the birth of the Park of the Sculpture of Castelbuono, which starts under the direction of Paolo Massei. Since then it celebrates every year his installations in the framework of the Week of Culture of Peace held in Castelbuono between 25 April and 1^st May.

Some members of Pro Loco (first of all Domenico lanari) and other inhabitants also founded in 1988 the “Centro di Solidarietà Ape”. The Centre, which is run by volunteers and has about 700 members divided into 280 families. It is self-financing and raises funds with the aim of freely helping all those who need health facilities in case of highly disabling diseases.

For Bevagna inhabitants, Umbrian people and other-origins gourmets, the name Cantalupo remains today associated essentially with the Sagra della Lumaca. There is some truth in this perception, but that is not all. In mid-August each year, a week before the festival starts, many Cantalupo inhabitants (about 200 residents and exiles) meet at Centro Polivalente to spend time and have lunch together. More than thinking of wolves and snails, they are there above all to celebrate– in a society dispersed in assonances and affections like that of today; an ancient and renewed sense of belonging. A collective identity that may seem even improbable to those who are not from Cantalupo.

Segatori, GRANDE DIZIONARIO DI BEVAGNA, Vol 11 – pp : 8-9

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Probably the first settlement dates to the end of the 10^th century and the castrum had defensive purposes.

Today you can see the remains of a very suggestive castle that in the Middle Ages constituted, together with Limigiano, the defence of Bevagna from Todi, on the north-western side. What remains of the ring of walls testifies the history of this free Municipality, which had its own statute in 1345, published in 2004 by the Comprehensive Institute of Bevagna, within the Montagna Project, and with the contribution of Pro Loco Cantalupo-Castelbuono.

Castelbuono appears in the first documentary sources with the name Castrum Abbonis or Abboni (Castellum Aboni), perhaps of anthrophonic derivation.

It is remarkable that today in Italy there is only one Municipality with the same name: Castelbuono, in the province of Palermo.

Santa Maria is the only remaining church of the five existing. It has a curious polygonal bell tower with two pointed arches at the base. Inside, among others, on the left of the main altar you can see in a a Holy Temple a fresco by Ascensidonio Spacca, known as Il Fantino, representing the Madonna with the Child, San Giuseppe and San Giovanni the Evangelist; on the right the Madonna della Misericordia and the Mysteries of the Rosary by Anonymous of the 16^th century, with San Domenico added by the same painter.

Along the walls there are decorated little chapels.

A fragment of a travertine double-sloping cinerary urn cover id Inserted in the corner of a house-wall, inside the village.

Frontally you can notice a togated half-bust figure, the inscription is lengthened on a single line along the base bar of the lid: Cn(aeus) Salvenus. The gens Salvena is documented by two other inscriptions always engraved on lid of cinerary urns coming perhaps from Torre del Colle, not far from Castelbuono, and therefore perhaps of the same tomb complex.

Annarita Falsacappa, Giovanni Mariotti, Paolo Porzi – BEVAGNA GEMMA DEL PIANO. Immagini insolite e storie inedite – Dimensione Grafica Editrice – 2013 –pp. 227-228

L'articolo CASTELBUONO proviene da Visit Bevagna.

The view of the tower reminds us of the siege that people from Todi put in 1273 to Gaglioli, considered the access door to Bevagna. According to Piergili, downstream there was the cult of Latona from which the torrent Attone, or Lattone, would take its name, whereas at the summit of the hill there would be the cult of Apollo.

The current Via Castello di Radione and Via Panoramica di Santa Potenza recall the past. Inside the village there is the fourteenth-century church of Santa Maria, today completely renovated. On the wall, to the left of the central altar, a chapel with frescoes of three saints appears: San Nicola from Tolentino between San Francesco and Beato Giacomo with the inscription this chapel de sancto nicola sie factta per voto del castello.

Nearby you can visit Gaglioletto. At the entrance of this village, now almost abandoned, a majesty representing Our Lady with the Child nicely shows itself.

Annarita Falsacappa, Giovanni Mariotti, Paolo Porzi –  BEVAGNA GEMMA DEL PIANO. Immagini insolite e storie inedite – Dimensione Grafica Editrice – 2013 –  pp. 281-282

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It is a wild place, where nature is regaining space in the deepest silence, because in the middle of summer you can’t even hear water flowing.

The pond of sulphurous water, no longer pure for various infiltrations, is the subject of stories, not always founded and far in time, still told by the inhabitants of the place. You plunge into a magical and fantastic atmosphere, fantastic and referred to before and after the Roman period: we talk about the finding in the territory between Limigiano and Collemancio of giant Megacero deer horns too, that could have had an up-to-three-meters opening in the middle Pleistocene. The boys used to climb down this ditch, which was a bit of a hangout to swim, drink water and find some mosaic stones, having fun in games then imagined.

A little underground, in fact, the remains of a villa of the Roman period were found. Giulio Baldaccini and then Giovanni Canelli Bizzozzero first talked about because they were conducting the excavations at Urvinum Hortense. During some agricultural works a mosaic was discovered. It was part of a bath building, which had two flights of stone steps: the former led to the upper level and the latter descended towards the stream.

In a stretch of the ditch blocks of stone are visible, which determine a difference in altitude and therefore a waterfall. The place is called Borgo di Maria Chiara, from the name given by the people to the ancient queen who, drinking water, is said to have healed from the scabies.

The queen would have used to repeat: “Li mi sano” (“there I restore”), expression that perhaps gave the name to the castle. According to other hypotheses, the name derives from the Latin limite sano, as the tenth-century castle stood on the healthiest part of the territory, surrounded by the swamps followed by the drainage of the Lacus Umber; or, and this seems the most plausible hypothesis, the castle derives its name from the god Janus. Further upstream is Catenillo, where the boys used to bathe. Returning on Via Perugina towards Bevagna, just ahead, you go up right in via Limigiano. Once you entered the castle, the old monastery appears. The courtyard maintains the original architectural structure, with a central well. The monastery, founded in 1058 and dedicated to Sant’Angelo, was first dependent on Perugia and then on Sassovivo always under the rule of San Benedetto.

Spetia writes that the events of this monastery did not always have a religious character. After episodes of monks (Francesco and Gennaro) in search of gallant adventure, there was a revolt of the inhabitants of Limigiano against the monastery, which, invaded and put to iron and fire, saw the killing of the Abbot Francesco and other monks.

Ruggero Trinci, Prior of San Feliciano in Foligno, was commissioned to carry out the trial, established by the acts that the crimes were real.

The church of San Michele Arcangelo has three naves: the one in the left is divided into chapels having at the bottom a fresco depicting the martyrdom of San Sebastiano and on the vault the Evangelists. Near the door there is a Roman capital with the Holy Water Font, while the high altar stays on a fragment of a Roman column. On the external walls you can see the double lancet windows of the façade and the single lancet windows of the apses.

Annarita Falsacappa, Giovanni Mariotti, Paolo Porzi – BEVAGNA GEMMA DEL PIANO. Immagini insolite e storie inedite – Dimensione Grafica Editrice – 2013 – pp. 221-226

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According to his nephew Ireno, Stortini Pierino was the coordinator of a widespread movement of veneration of the Madonna della Valle, but that took place above all in this house in Torre del Colle, where he had frescoed the image of Our Lady asserting that She had transferred there the seat of her graces. According to him, several supernatural events caused by the image of Our Lady were recorded, which solved the most disparate cases. That is why devotion increased, enriching the church with countless ex voto.

Along the walls of the castle a beautiful semi-cylindrical tower oriented towards the valley of Attone remains, inside which you breathe air of other times.

In front of the medieval tower there is a ruin of the old cemetery boundary wall, which existed under the village and which was eliminated to build the sewer network. The remains of the bones were transported to the Bevagna cemetery during the works carried out in the 1960s.

Today a large and unprecedented reuse project for the most significant environments has been realized (three-level tower, with the rediscovery of the strategic guard point terrace, the school building and the store). It has its centre of gravity around the ancient oil mill, now become a restaurant, to revive for public use a significant reality.

THE NEW CHURCH OF TORRE DEL COLLE

In the locality Ponte di Torre del Colle, hidden by vegetation, the new church of Torre del Colle stands.

The building is a typical structure of the architecture of the 70s, designed and built by the architect Piero Sartogo, the engineer Valenti and the firm Lanfranco Brizi from Faustana (Trevi). It is a church that contains within itself a symbolic universe of the Christian faith.

The altar, made by a sculptor, Baverly Pepper, who lives between Todi and New York, is provisionally made of iron. The project is particularly appreciated in the 70s by the Cardinal of Boston, who asks for a copy.

The fresco depicting the martyrdom of Saint Lawrence is the work of Clemens Klopfenstein, a Swiss artist who has lived in Bevagna for many years.

THE CHURCH OF SAN LORENZO

The church of San Lorenzo rises behind the perimeter walls of Torre del Colle, which was in the 14^th century feud of the Counts of Antinano, precisely on the highest point of the small village. Its modest façade overlooks a pretty square from which you can see an idyllic panorama.

The original construction of the 10^th century has undergone significant external modifications which do not change the early medieval style.

The Church of San Lorenzo gives its name to the entire village that rises around the small building of Christian worship.

Inside the Church of San Lorenzo there is a sixteenth-century canvas representing Madonna in Gloria and San Pietro, Paolo and Francesco. The work is attributed to Ascensidonio Spacca.

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