The complex of San Francesco, consisting of the church and the adjacent former convent, stands on the site where, according to legend, St. Francis preached, speaking to a braying donkey and managing to pacify him. The church was built over an ancient building dating back to 1268 and dedicated to the Madonna; it was enlarged in the 14^th century and restored a century later. The architecture is simple and undecorated, in line with the style of mendicant orders. It has a single nave with a wooden truss roof, a pentagonal central apse and two rectangular-shaped chapels on the sides. Inside there are 15^th-16^th-century frescoes and a beautiful cross from the first half of the 14^th century. Still preserved inside the church is an organ of great value made by the Montefalco-born Paolo Pietro di Paolo in 1504. It is the oldest example in Umbria, and one of the oldest in Europe, a survivor of the type defined as a ‘Wall organ’ during the Renaissance.

The convent was founded by the Friars Minor Conventual, who became a fundamental order for the community of Trevi. In fact, they were entrusted with the custody of the three keys to the city’s invaluable historical archive, the so-called ‘Archivio delle Tre Chiavi’ (Archive of the Three Keys). The convent develops around the beautiful cloister formed by the portico, whose lunettes are frescoed with episodes from the life of St. Francis by Bernardino Gagliardi from Città di Castello, who painted them around 1645. In the 17^th century the building was rebuilt from its very foundations, while in 1833 it was restructured by the famous architect Giuseppe Valadier, who made it suitable to host the collegio Lucarini, a prestigious institution founded two centuries earlier by Virgilio Lucarini, exponent of a wealthy family from Trevi.

Today the museum complex of San Francesco has been set up inside the former convent, inaugurated in 1996 after reconstruction and restoration works. Originally the Museo della Città e del Territorio and the Pinacoteca were set up established there, while three years later it gave way to the Museo della Civiltà dell’Ulivo. Finally, in 2006, the complex was completed with the addition of the Antiquarium. Inside the Pinacoteca (Gallery) are artworks of exceptional calibre from the medieval and renaissance periods, such as l’Incoronazione della Vergine by Giovanni di Pietro, a Madonna con il Bambino by Pinturicchio and l’Assunzione della Vergine, an altar-piece created in 1640 da Alessandro Turchi. The archaeological museum instead contains excavated materials found in the locality of Pietrarossa, where ancient Roman Trebiae once stood.

Trevi’s Cathedral or ‘Duomo’ is named after St Emiliano, the first bishop, martyr and patron of the city, whose stories are told in the Passio Sancti Miliani. An Armenian, he was sent to administer the local church but was persecuted and killed in 303, under Diocletian, on the olive tree now called precisely ‘di Sant’Emiliano’. The people of Trevi have always been very devoted to their patron saint, to the extent that in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the saint’s name was used to refer to Trevi itself or its inhabitants. The Patron’s Day Feast is held on 27^th January and a moving and deeply-felt procession of the ‘Illuminata’ takes place the night before. The church towers over the city from the top of the hill where, according to legend, the temple of Diana Trivia stood; the oldest remains of the church date back to the 12^th century and are represented by the three elegant apses and the statuette of the saint, placed above the 15^th-century portal which is now walled up. In the 15^th century, in fact, the church was enlarged by Lombard craftsmen: the main portal and the tympanum above it belong to this phase, depicting St Emiliano between two lions. The first is surrounded by a frame, made using a Roman tombstone, while the second was originally positioned on top of an altar in the town square, since the new priests stepped up onto it when they celebrated their first mass. The most important intervention was by the Roman architect Luca Carimini, who gave the church its present appearance in the second half of the 19^th century.

The inside of the building is neoclassical in style and the cippus is kept there, in which the remains of St Emiliano were found; it also exhibits frescos from the 16^th century: one in particular comes from a column in the Renaissance temple and is therefore called Madonna della Colonna and is attributed to Francesco Melanzio da Montefalco. There are two splendid altars: the Sacramento by Rocco da Vicenza (1521) and the Trinità (1585).

The Civic Tower, which stands tall in the south-east corner of Piazza Mazzini, was probably built together with Palazzo Comunale in the 13^th century. Over the centuries it was restored several times due to damage caused by earthquakes, war events or other calamities. In particular, in 1420, the Lord of Foligno Corrado Trinci took possession of Trevi and ordered that the tower be lowered. Once his dominion ceased, however, the local authorities had it raised again because from a distance the sound of bells could not be heard. Now silent, these bells were once used to convene city meetings and for other functions, all indicated on an inscription (in the form of a couplet) on the Maggiore bell: “Convoco arma, signo dies, known horas, debello nubila, concino laeta, ploro rogos”, which translates: “I summon the troops, I count the days, I ring out the hours, I expel storms, I celebrate holidays, I weep for the dead”. The Torre is the symbol of the Municipality.

The church of the Madonna delle Lagrime was erected following a prodigious event: in 1485 a fresco of a rural house depicting a Madonna with Child, today inside the sanctuary, wept tears of blood and so the community of Trevi decided to start work for the construction of the building. These were entrusted to Antonio di Giorgio Marchisi and began in 1487 and ended in 1522. The church we can admire today is an enchanting Umbrian model of a Latin cross Renaissance church. Inside the imposing and luminous building, which has a single nave with cross vaults, there are works of admirable quality, among them the burial monuments of the Valenti family are of particular distinction. Some of the works from the Sanctuary are now preserved in the Raccolta d’Arte (Art Collection) at the Museo di San Francesco a Trevi

The most famous chapels are the Adorazione dei Magi and the San Francesco, both richly decorated by two illustrious artists. In the first, you will find the fresco of the Adorazione by Pietro (aka Perugino), who created it in his more mature phase, in 1522. Inside the second chapel there is instead the Trasporto di Christo by Giovanni di Pietro, painted between 1518 and 1520. Other works by the famous artist are kept in the Museum and in the convent of San Martino. The church consists of four other chapels and an altar.

Outside you will find the monumental portal, built in ‘alba stone’ at the end of the 15^th century by Giovanni di Giampietro da Venezia.

Villa Fabri is a captivating place that combines art, history and nature, and from its garden you can enjoy a spectacular view of the Spoleto valley. It is or was called by different names, depending on the families that have owned it over time.

It was built at the beginning of the 17^th century by Girolamo Fabri “for the relief of his old age, to the delight of posterity and the country”. It subsequently passed into the hands of the Venturini, then the Onori-Roncalli from Foligno, and again to the Carrara family from Terni to then pass into the ownership of the counts della Porta from Roma. In 1891 Monsignor Hais purchased it and expanded it to establish the Collegio Boemo (Bohemian Collage), while from the 1940s to the 1980s it housed the Collegio Etiopico (Ethiopian College)and was this renamed ‘Villa dei Moretti’. Today the Villa is owned by the Municipality and is the seat of the Municipal Tourist Office, of the Fondazione Villa Fabri and of the Regional Association promoting the Strada dell’Olio extravergine di Oliva Dop Umbria.

The facade of the Villa bears monochrome graffiti of Prague and five other Bohemian cities, while the numerous interior rooms are decorated with magnificent frescoes by artists from Rome and Siena from the first half of the 17^th century, including Salimbeni and Pomarancio. Allegories, zodiac signs, scenes from the Old Testament and the lives of the saints are depicted, and in the first room, a fake door is painted bearing a curious character in the act of appearing.

Certainly the most important work in the Villa is the Cappella dei Boemi, built between 1912 and 1914, by Pantaleone Mayor, famous exponent of the Beuron school, an artistic movement that started in Sweden on the initiative of the Benedictine monk Peter Lenz in the second half of the 19^th century. And it is precisely this chapel in Villa Fabri that represents the second most important work of this school of art in Italy, after the crypt of Montecassino.

Completely immersed in olive groves and perched on a rock behind Trevi, the now former church of Santa Caterina was the centre of religious life for the people of Trevi for many years. Only a large fresco on the back wall remains of the church, depicting a dramatic Crucifixion, with life-size figures of the various Marys, St. Francis, St. John the Evangelist, and St. Catherine of Alexandria. The fresco dates back to the 14^th century and has been attributed to the ‘Primo maestro di Santa Chiara da Montefalco’ (First Master of Santa Chiara from Montefalco). The canvas depicting the Martyrdom of Saint Catherine, currently preserved in the Sanctuary of the Madonna delle Lagrime, came originally from this church.

The building was probably abandoned due to its largely inaccessible position and the nearby presence of the Capuchin convent, where the Cemetery is now, which was larger and more active. There have always been many devotees of Santa Caterina amongst the population of Trevi and is connected to Trevi’s flagship: on 25^th November, in fact, the feast day of the saint, once the Mass had ended, the olive harvest began. At the end of the 19^th century, the building was defaced in order to retrieve stone for the construction of Trevi’s hospital and since then its condition only worsened, until its restoration in 2011, which has now made it possible to see and visit this gem again, thanks to the path created by the mountain community.

Palazzo Lucarini was built in the second half of the 15^th century, absorbing a small medieval district of Trevi. The Lucarini family was one of the most illustrious in the city and Virgilio Lucarini was undoubtedly the most important person: he left his fortune in Trevi and Rome to be used to build a college for young people who wanted to set their sights on studying law and medicine. The college was housed in the palazzo until 1832, after which it was transferred to Palazzo Valenti and then finally to the convent of San Francesco.

The building has a 16^th-century portal – arched and with architraves – which bears the coats of arms of the Lucarini and Valenti families; there is another from the 17^th century, together with several windows dating back to the same period. Today Palazzo Lucarini belongs to the Municipality of Trevi and is used in part for residential purposes and in part as the headquarters of the Centre for Contemporary Art of the non-profit Cultural Association ‘Palazzo Lucarini Contemporary’.

Palazzo Valenti is probably the most beautiful noble residence in all of Trevi. Owned by the Counts Valenti di Riosecco, one of the many branches into which the Trevi family tree splits off, the Palazzo dates to the Renaissance period. The building is not open to the public but you can still admire the exterior, with its magnificent arched portal with architraves with the heads of men in the segments, and the windows with the family crests.

Inside, you can only visit the entrance hall, where you will see a large cistern for rainwater. Before the aqueduct was constructed in 1928, access to a reliable water supply was a serious problem for Trevi: the citizens could only have public cisterns, now located under the city streets, while the wealthier families, like the Valenti, equipped the own residences with private cisterns, such as the one in the entrance of this building.