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S. Venanzo (Terni province)

A town of W central Umbria: 42°52N, 12°15.5E. Altitude: 465 m. Population in 2003: 2300.

[image ALT: A square stone tower about 10 meters tall, with a bit of attached wall to the right, pierced by a large round arch with a grillwork gate. The ruins stand behind a flat, square, stagnant pool of water and are surround by pines and some deciduous trees. It is a view of the medieval town fortress of S. Venanzo, Umbria (central Italy).]

The remains of the 12c Rocca of S. Venanzo are now part of a municipal park.

S. Venanzo lies on the first rise towards Mt. Peglia (where some very early Roman vestiges were found in 1999), on a back road connecting Monteleone di Orvieto (30 km W) to Marsciano (11 km E). The area is of geological interest, since it is the only volcanic outcrop anywhere in Umbria, and in fact the mineral venanzite, a form of lava said to be used in the construction industry — although I have yet to find confirmation of this in non-Umbrian sources — is named after the comune.

You should not confuse the full-fledged comune of S. Venanzo with the tiny village by the same name in the comune of Spoleto.

[ 12/21/09: 3 churches, 4 pages, 10 photos ]

The churches of S. Venanzo probably number about twenty over the entire territory of the comune. I've seen the two in the town itself, and another not far away.

Frazioni

Like most of the comuni in Italy, San Venanzo includes in its territory some smaller towns and hamlets, of a few hundred inhabitants if that, with a certain administrative identity of their own: as elsewhere in Italy, these are referred to as the frazioni of the comune (singular: frazione, literally a "fraction"): a complete list of them follows.

Collelungo • Ospedaletto • Poggio Aquilone • Pornello • Ripalvella • Rotecastello • S. Marino • S. Vito in Monte

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