The construction of the Chiesa di Sant’Agata, the then parish church of Tuori (the ancient name of the village), dates back to around the year 1000. The church was dedicated to the martyred virgin who refused to marry Quinziano, a perfidious Sicilian governor who worked during the empire of Decius and issued an edict aimed at persecuting Christians.
Quinziano, enamoured of the young Agata, tried to seduce her and force her to renounce her Christian faith, but the virgin refused him and was consequently tortured and killed in 251.
The church of Sant’Agata stands outside the city walls of Perugia, on a hill 2 km from the current village of Tuoro and was to have been a Romanesque church of modest size, like the lovely Chiesa di San Salvatore on Lake Trasimeno’s Isola Maggiore. Unfortunately, only a few remains of the building have survived to the present day, namely some ruins of the perimeter walls and part of the apse, with some decorations; however, we can still admire a single lancet window in the shape of a Latin cross that attests to the original appearance of this church. It was probably destroyed by an army around the end of the 14th century, following one of the numerous conflicts with the municipality of Perugia, as happened to many architectural works in the various locations on and around Lake Trasimeno. Unfortunately, the church was not rebuilt by the inhabitants, who progressively moved further downstream where they founded the new urban settlement. Here they built a new church in honour of Santa Maria Maddalena, replacing the ancient church dedicated to Sant’Agatha.