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Belfiore

Historical Notes

Belfiore is a small settlement of about 800 people that emerges in the final segment of the Menotre River Valley. Easy to get to from Foligno, about 6 km. away, it is near Assisi (20 km.) and halfway between Perugia, to the north and Spoleto to the south.

Belfiore (which literally means Beautiful Flower) in ancient times was called Fragnano, a name whose origin can probably be traced back to the 3^rd century before Christ when the consular road Flaminia was built along the valley.

The first documented facts about the town however, go back to the Low Middle Ages when Fragnano was a "sloping fort" erected to guard the road that went from Foligno to the Plestini plateau.

Its present name was probably given to it during the Modern Age when a strong ecomonic boom deriving from a flourishing paper industry produced a noticeable growth in the building industry and population.

The paper industry in the town continued to develop upto the beginning of the current century and with it, so did the town. Numerous chruches and well-made aristocratic homes were built, the most impotant being the Church of the Assumption, whose facade is attributed to the architect Benvenuti and large private homes such as Palazzo Unti, Palazzo Matteucci, Palazzo Francalancia, etc.

Today Belfiore is one of the most important hubs of the Foligno area, not only for its historical value and its geographic location, but also for the quality of the area that surrounds it. The hills around the town are characterized by Mediterranean scrub, ilex groves and olive groves and the latter in particular, bears and gives us one of the areas most typical and well-known product true Umbrian Olive Oil that is of the highest quality not only from a chemcal point of veiw but also from am organoleptic one.