page_title: Perugia
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Perugia / History
caption_attribution_description: Español: Fotografía desde un mirador situado en lo alto del opidum que ofrece un amplio panorama del llano de Umbría (Italia). Français&#160;: Le belvédère situé en haut de l'opidum offre un large panorama sur la plaine d'Ombrie. Photo personnelle&#160;: Dominique grassigli
context_page_description: Perugia is the capital city of the region of Umbria in central Italy, near the Tiber River, and the capital of the province of Perugia. The city is about 100 miles north of Rome. It covers a high hilltop and part of the valleys around the area.
  The history of Perugia goes back to the Roman Empire. However, major parts of the city have been destroyed, and rebuilt, because of many wars, and of earthquakes in the mid-19th century. In recent decades, the city has been known as a university town, with the University of Perugia, the University for Foreigners, and some smaller colleges, also. There are annual festivals and events: the Eurochocolate Festival, the Umbria Jazz Festival, and the International Journalism Festival.
  Perugia is a well-known artistic center of Italy. The famous painter Pietro Vannucci, nicknamed Perugino, came from Città della Pieve near Perugia. He decorated the local Sala del Cambio with a beautiful series of frescoes; eight of his pictures can also be seen in the National Gallery of Umbria. Perugino was the teacher of Raphael, the great Renaissance artist who produced five paintings in Perugia and one fresco.
context_section_description: Perugia was an Umbrian settlement but first appears in written history as Perusia, one of the twelve confederate cities of Etruria. It was first mentioned in Q. Fabius Pictor's account, used by Livy, of the expedition carried out against the Etruscans by Fabius Maximus Rullianus in 310 or 309 BC. At that time, a thirty-year indutiae (truce) was agreed upon; however, in 295 BC, Perusia took part in the Third Samnite War and was reduced, with Volsinii and Arretium (Arezzo), to seek for peace in the following year.
  In 216 and 205 BC, Perugia assisted Rome in the Second Punic War. Little else is known until 41-40 BC, when Lucius Antonius (brother of Mark Antony) took refuge there, in the Roman civil war between Mark Antony and Octavian. Much of ancient Perugia was destroyed by Octavian (later became Emperor Augustus) after a long siege, and its senators were sent to their death. A number of lead bullets used by slingers have been found in and around the city. The city was burnt, we are told, with the exception of the temples of Vulcan and Juno. The huge Etruscan terrace-walls, naturally, can hardly have suffered at all. Afterward, the town, with the territory for a mile round, was allowed to be occupied by whoever came. It must have been rebuilt almost at once, for several bases of statues exist, inscribed with the words "Augusto sacr(um) Perusia restituta". However, the town did not become a colonia, until 251-253 AD, when it was resettled as Colonia Vibia Augusta Perusia, under the emperor C. Vibius Trebonianus Gallus.
  Perugia is hardly mentioned, except by the geographers, until it was the only city in Umbria to resist Totila, who captured it and laid the city waste in 547, after a long siege, apparently after the city's Byzantine garrison evacuated. Negotiations with the besieging forces fell to the city's bishop, Herculanus, as representative of the townspeople. Totila is said to have ordered the bishop to be flayed and beheaded. St. Herculanus (Sant'Ercolano) later became the city's patron saint.
  In the Lombard period, Perugia is spoken of as one of the principal cities of Tuscia. In the 9th century, with the consent of Charlemagne and Louis the Pious, it passed under the popes; but by the 11th century its commune was asserting itself, and for many centuries the city continued to maintain an independent life, warring against many of the neighbouring lands and cities: Foligno, Assisi, Spoleto, Todi, Siena, Arezzo, etc. In 1186, Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor, rex romanorum and future emperor, granted diplomatic recognition to the consular government of the city; afterward Pope Innocent III, whose major aim was to give state dignity to the dominions having been constituting the patrimony of St. Peter, acknowledged the validity of the imperial statement and recognized the established civic practices having the force of law.
  On various occasions, the popes found asylum, from the conflicts in Rome, within its walls, and it was the meeting-place of five conclaves (Perugia Papacy), including those which elected Honorius III (1216), Clement IV (1285), Celestine V (1294), and Clement V (1305); the papal presence was characterized by a peace-time rule between the internal rivalries. But Perugia had no mind simply to serve the papal interests and never accepted papal sovereignty: the city used to exercise a jurisdiction over the members of the clergy. Also, in 1282, Perugia was excommunicated due to a new military conflict against the Ghibellines regardless of a papal prohibition. In the other hand, side by side with the 13th-century bronze griffin of Perugia, above the door of the Palazzo dei Priori stands, as a Guelphic emblem, the lion: Perugia remained loyal for the most part to the Guelph party in the struggles of Guelphs and Ghibellines. However this dominant tendency was rather an anti-Germanic and Italian political strategy. The Angevin presence in Italy appeared offer a counterpoise to papal powers: in 1319 Perugia declared the Angevin Saint Louis of Toulouse "Protector of the city's sovereignty and of the Palazzo of its P
caption: View of other hills around Perugia.
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