In the Baglioni chapel of Santa Maria Maggiore, Pinturicchio painted in 1501 an Annunciation with self-portrait and one of the Renaissance's sweetest Nativities, over a floor of Deruta majolica: this is the treasure of Spello, a Roman and medieval village leaning on Mount Subasio, all pink stone and flowering balconies.
Roman it truly is: the Venus Gate with its twelve-sided towers and the mosaics of the Villa dei Mosaici prove it. At Corpus Domini, the Infiorate carpet the lanes with petal tapestries for the procession to cross: an ephemeral art prepared in one night, worth the trip alone.
Near Spello
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
