Civita di Bagnoregio, the Village Suspended between Badlands and Saints

In the valley of the calanchi, the eroded badlands between Orvieto and Lake Bolsena, a small village seems to float in the void on a spur of tufa. Civita di Bagnoregio can be reached only on foot, along a long bridge suspended above a landscape of clay carved by rain. Its medieval houses rest on a rock that is slowly crumbling, and so the village has been called «the dying town». Yet its history is ancient and rich in sacred memories.

A landscape that wears away

The ground of Civita consists of a layer of volcanic tufa lying on older and more fragile clays. Rain and streams constantly erode the clays, causing landslides that bring down the edges of the cliff. Over the centuries entire quarters have fallen into the valley, and the ancient settlement once joined to Bagnoregio has been left isolated on an ever smaller height.

A severe earthquake in 1695 hastened the decline: many inhabitants and the main institutions moved to nearby Bagnoregio, which was safer. The present reinforced concrete footbridge was built in 1965, replacing older links damaged by landslides and by war. Today the permanent residents are very few, while visitors arrive in their thousands.

Etruscans, Romans and a tunnel through the rock

The origins of the settlement go back to the Etruscans, who exploited the defensive position of the cliff and dug tunnels and tombs into the tufa. The Bucaione, a long gallery that crosses the rock and descends towards the valley, is traditionally held to be of Etruscan origin, though it was enlarged in later periods. The name Bagnoregio derives from the Latin Balneum Regis, perhaps linked to the presence of thermal waters.

In the main square stands the church of San Donato, medieval in origin and altered several times. It holds a much venerated fifteenth-century wooden crucifix, to which popular devotion attributes miraculous episodes. Every year the square hosts traditional festivals, including a donkey race, the palio, involving the districts of Bagnoregio.

The good fortune of a saint

Around 1217 Civita was the birthplace of Giovanni Fidanza, who became famous under the name of Bonaventure. According to legend, when he was a gravely ill child he was healed through the intercession of Saint Francis, who on seeing him is said to have exclaimed «O buona ventura», oh, good fortune. The tale explains the name evocatively, but has no firm evidence.

Bonaventure was a theologian in Paris, minister general of the Franciscans from 1257 and a cardinal. He wrote the official biography of Francis and a mystical treatise, The Journey of the Mind into God, describing the soul's ascent through the created world to contemplation. He died in 1274 during the Council of Lyon. His birthplace in Civita has disappeared because of the landslides.

Crossing the bridge to Civita means making a small secular pilgrimage, suspended between sky and abyss. The village is a reminder that every place is fragile and transient, and precious for that very reason. It is a lesson that the mystic Bonaventure, born on this cliff, might well have recognised as his own, he who saw the visible world as a ladder towards the invisible.