In Perugia the cathedral gives the square its flank and not its façade: on Piazza IV Novembre, facing the Fontana Maggiore and the Palazzo dei Priori, stands the side with the never-finished chequerboard of pink and white marble, the loggia of Braccio da Montone, the steps where the Perugians sit and the bronze statue of Pope Julius III, whom the city thanked for giving back the magistracies taken away by Paul III. The real façade, bare, is at the back, on Piazza Danti. The church was begun in 1345 on a project by Fra Bevignate and finished in 1490, a Gothic hall of three aisles of equal height that the eighteenth century clothed in stucco and gilding.
What to see
Outside, under the loggia, a piece of Roman wall, the foundations of the old bell tower and the cast of the Stone of Justice, with which in 1234 the Commune announced it had paid off the whole public debt. On the flank, the portal by Galeazzo Alessi, the pulpit of ancient fragments from which Saint Bernardino of Siena preached to the Perugians, and a wooden Crucifix placed there by the citizens in 1540 to protest against the pope during the salt war. Inside, on the left, the chapel of the Holy Ring, closed by an iron grille: it keeps what tradition says is the wedding ring of the Virgin, a green stone stolen from Chiusi by a German friar in 1473, in a reliquary by the Roscetto that is a masterpiece of goldsmiths' work; it is shown twice a year by opening fourteen locks. Here hung Perugino's Marriage of the Virgin, carried off by the French and today in Caen.
On the right, at the end, the chapel of San Bernardino with the Deposition by Federico Barocci, of 1569, the most important painting in the city and one of the great ones of the European sixteenth century, with its shimmering colours and the body sliding down from the cross. In the apse the inlaid choir by Giuliano da Maiano and Domenico del Tasso, restored after a fire; in the Sacrament chapel, by Alessi, the tomb of Martin IV and the relics of Innocent III and Urban IV, three popes who died in Perugia. The Chapter museum, in the cloister, has Signorelli's Sant'Onofrio altarpiece.
Visiting
The cathedral is at the top of Corso Vannucci, free entry with church hours and a lunch closure; the Chapter museum and the cloister have their own ticket and hours, with a weekly closing day to check. The Holy Ring is seen at the end of July and in September, on the days of the showings. An hour, more with the museum.
Our editors' tip
Go to the Barocci in the late afternoon, when the chapel is empty, and look at the Christ from below, as the painted women see him: it is a picture made to be looked at upwards. Then go out and sit on the steps with the Perugians, in front of the fountain: the flank of the cathedral, with the marbles that stop halfway, is the Perugia that never finished anything and for that reason has stayed as it is.