The convent and church of Sant’Antonio are in ruins today, but they were at the centre of the social and religious life of the inhabitants of Bettona for some three hundred years. In his Memorie, the stubbornly disobedient priest of Bettona, Pietro Onofri, paints a wonderful picture of the building at the beginning of the 19^th century, shortly before its demise: “all together this was one of the most beautiful convents had by the Observant Friars in Province of Umbria. […] In the vicinity of our Bettona, there is no more beautiful location”.

The convent was founded by the Observant branch of the Order of Friars Minor who arrived in Bettona in 1434 at the behest of the villagers themselves: the friars had settled in the hermitage of Sant’Onofrio, which is now the chapel of the Bettona’s cemetery, where they remained until 1500, when “due to the great humidity and injuriousness of the site that became uninhabitable”, they moved to the spot where a chapel dedicated to St Manno stood and started building the church and convent.

The convent was fairly large: there were two dormitories, with 20 habitable rooms and an apartment for the provincial superiors; the refectory could accommodate 40 friars and there were all the necessary workshops. A well-stocked and catalogued library is also mentioned, while there was no infirmary or apothecary, but the friars had a vast garden and a wood with fruit trees.

The adjacent church was a treasure trove of works of art, as well as the fulcrum of community life in Bettona: here the confraternity of Sant’Antonio Abate was erected, consisting entirely of peasants, to show how much this place represented the most attractive religious complex for the rural populations. They helped the friars to manage the church and convent and, with their quests, purchased many of the objects and works of art that are in the building: many went missing after the complex was suppressed while others are now kept at the Museo della Città di Bettona. Among the latter are Sant’Antonio di Padua e committente and the Madonna della Misericordia by Pietro Vannucci known as Perugino, the Madonna delle Grazie e sei santi by Jacopo Siculo and a glazed terracotta representing St Antony of Padua by Della Robbia.

After the Unification of Italy, the convent was suppressed and became a hospital, a colony of the G.I.L. (Italian Youth of the Lictor), and social housing for families in financial difficulty. The complex has been in a very poor state since uncompleted renovation work in the 1980s. Completely stripped of any furniture, it is now covered with vegetation both internally and externally, with unsafe walls and parts of frescoes left in a terrible condition. In recent years some initiatives have been promoted by the Pro Loco of Bettona in collaboration with the Municipality: a restoration project for the entire building has been proposed but the necessary funds are still lacking.

Palazzo del Podestà is situated in Bettona’s main piazza next to Palazzo Biancalana and not far from the church of Santa Maria Maggiore. This unassuming 14^th-century building was home to the ancient governors and the Podestà (generally the highest-ranking administrator or chief magistrate). Its construction dates back to the rebuilding of Bettona by Egidio Albornoz in 1367, after the Perugians had razed it to the ground: in 1379, in fact, the decided was made to build a new home for the priors.

The palazzo is important from an historical and artistic point of view, as evidenced by two frescoes: the Maestà e santi, dating back to 1380 and located inside the hall, and the Santi Pietro e Paolo con angeli reggistemma, which is located outside and was painted over half a century later. Both look very faded now and for a long time they went practically unnoticed among the walls of the building. Indeed, over the years, the building took on a different appearance and at the beginning of the 20^th century it had 17^th-century windows and was a two-storey building, which had been built on the right. It had at least continued to be used for public functions such as hearings with the Conciliator, tax collecting and as a municipal treasury, but the real revival came when it was chosen as the seat of the Bettona’s art gallery.

On August 14, 1904 the Museo della Città di Bettona was finally opened and was housed in the halls of the palazzo, which had been restored to its original 14^th-century appearance, thanks to the architect Viviani and the painter Sebastiano Novelli, who frescoed the hall.

Today the museum is still located in the Palazzo del Podestà, but due to an earthquake in 2016, the works have all been moved to Palazzo Biancalana, as the room in Palazzo Podestà is closed temporarily.

Palazzo Biancalana is one of the main buildings overlooking Bettona’s central piazza and is next to palazzo del Podestà. It was built on the site of a pre-existing building and designed by Francesco Biancalana, who bought it in the early 19^th century. He planned the reconstruction but died before it was completed, in 1859, as indicated on one of the bricks on the floor. The previous old building had adjoining gardens and a public passageway, but everything was demolished to make way for the aristocratic residence, which is characterized by a neo-16^th-century style in use in 19^th-century private buildings and a certain rhythmic spatial dimension typical of neoclassicism; other aspects, such as the railing and the entrance portal, which are not very ornate, are typical of the fin de siécle style.

The building is composed of two different materials, rusticated on the ground floor and plastered on the upper floors, while the balcony railing above the portal is in cast iron.

Today, part of the palazzo is home to the Museo della Città di Bettona: the left side of the ground floor houses the archaeological section, while the right hand half of the piano nobile, which also includes the living room with the fireplace, is a picture gallery.

It’s a peculiar fact that some of the museum’s works of art came were inherited from the last owner of the building, who would never have imagined such a turn of events. In 1920, Bianca Biancalana named Guido Cingolani as her universal heir, with the express wish that her assets “never be sold or exchanged or rented to the townsfolk.” Instead, after various vicissitudes, Biancalana assets were sold to the Municipality of Bettona in 1931, so fortunately for us, we can now admire them in their original location!

The oldest documentary evidence of the existence of a Benedictine monastery in the Bettona area concerns the Abbazia di San Crispolto della Piana, dating back to 1014, although the actual foundation date is unknown. The abbey, known as Badia, is in the town of Passaggio, near the point where the rivers Topino and Chiascio merge, in an area that was inhabited in Roman times, but which subsequently underwent gradual transformation to swamp land.

The abbey was built with waste materials obtained from Roman buildings and guarded the body of the patron saint of Bettona, San Crispolto: according to legend, the saint was martyred on the very spot where the abbey was built. In 1238 it became a dependency of Santa Maria Farneta, with the disagreement of the monks who experienced a downsizing in their political power. In 1265 the body of San Crispolto was transferred inside the city walls, to the new church of San Crispolto headed by the Conventual Franciscans. This event marked the beginning of an irreversible crisis in the Benedictine Order, whose importance was gradually reduced by the spread of the mendicant orders during the 14^th century.

The abbey then remained the property of local prelates, who lived there until the mid-19^th century, when the building was given over to farming purposes. Today the complex is a private residence, but the owner has lovingly restored the entire building: the original crypt, the apse above – one of the oldest in Umbria – and parts of the cloistered courtyard remain.

The Abbazia di San Quirico is in the Cerreto area and was the residence of Benedictine monks from the 1^st to the 19^th century. Together with the abbey of San Crispolto della Piana, it was the main Benedictine settlement in Bettona in the early Middle Ages and the first documents attesting to its existence date back to 1185, while we have no information about its foundation, which is presumed to be prior to the year 1000. There are no documents referring to San Quirico in the 13^th century, although we know that at the beginning of the 14^th century it depended on the abbey of San Giuliano di Spoleto. It was a flourishing centre throughout the century, administering numerous estates and functioning as a large agricultural concern. Subsequently it was subject to raids by troops from Perugia and by king Ladislaus of Naples, right up to the beginning of its decline: in 1325 the pope incorporated San Quirico into the Duchy of Spoleto and subsequently granted it in commendam to the monk from Chiaravalle, Ugolino Baglioni.

Today the abbey is private property and the church, which was built on the ruins of the monastery, is completely bare. It was built with materials taken from the nearby Roman settlement Urbinum Hortense. Above the door of the church there is a fresco depicting a Madonna and Child with the Saints Crispolto and Quirico attributed to Cesare Sermei, an 17^th-century Umbrian painter.

The tomb is located along Via Etrusca, which connects Bettona to Torgiano. It dates back to between the end of the 3^rd century BC and the beginning of the 2^nd century BC and was discovered in the early 20^th century.

The burial chamber or ‘hypogeum’ is easy to spot as it is open and protected only by a gate; after crossing a short open-air corridor, which leads to the door, originally composed of two travertine slabs, and accompanied by two steps leading to the tomb one enters the chamber. It is built of uniform stone blocks and is composed of a single room surmounted by a barrel vault ceiling.

The Etruscan tomb is also provided with channels for the rainwater, which was collected in an underground compartment located at the entrance. The last burial dates back to the 1st century AD, probably after the tomb was abandoned, as id evidenced by a Latin epigraph, which mentions a municipal magistrate of Bettona who was praetor Etruriae, that is, a priest of the league of Etruscan cities.

When it was discovered in the 20^th century, the tomb was in a state of neglect, had been damaged and the funereal accompaniments were in complete disarray. For safe-keeping, most of these – including jewellery in gold, silver, stone paste and bronze – are now at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Perugia and the Museo Archeologico della Città di Bettona.

Villa Boccaglione

Villa Boccaglione, called the ‘little Versailles of Umbria’, is located in the plains at the foot of the hill of Bettona, in the Passaggio area, and is one of the most important examples of a lowland villa in Umbria; it is of great historical-artistic important but unfortunately it is closed, and visits are rarely allowed.

It can be reached by following a long tree-lined avenue, at the end of which you will find yourself in front of an impressive and imposing three-storey villa, with a small church attached to it, a lemon-house, the remains of farmhouses and an area once occupied by stables and a large garden. At the rear of the villa, there is a horseshoe-shaped park, which ends in a grove with a small outdoor theatre.

According to some scholars, the architect Piermarini was commissioned by the Crispolti from Bettona to build the villa in the 18^th century, after which it was sold first to the Penna from Perugia, then to the Bianconi, the Fedeli and the Iraci-Mandolini Borgia. Since 1987 it has been owned by the Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali (Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities).

The villa, built upon an existing building, is oddly eclectic in style, blending neoclassical features with baroque elements; it is richly decorated with frescoes both outside and in the numerous interior rooms.