Duchy of Spoleto

The Archdiocese of Spoleto-Norcia (Latin: Archidioecesis Spoletana-Nursina) is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or archdiocese of the Catholic Church in Italy. Historically, it was the Diocese of Spoleto. Elevated to the status of an archdiocese since 1821, it is a non-metropolitan see and is immediately exempt to the Holy See.

Trasimène [tʁa.si.mɛn] was a department of the First French Empire from 1809 to 1814 in present-day Italy. It was named after Lake Trasimeno. It was formed on 15 July 1809, when the Papal States were annexed by France. Its capital was Spoleto. The department was disbanded after the defeat of Napoleon in 1814. At the Congress of Vienna, the Papal States were restored to Pius VII. Its territory is now divided between the Italian provinces of Perugia, Terni, Macerata and Viterbo.

The Festival dei Due Mondi (Festival of the Two Worlds) is an annual summer music and opera festival held each June to early July in Spoleto, Italy, since its founding by composer Gian Carlo Menotti in 1958. It features a vast array of concerts, opera, dance, drama, visual arts and roundtable discussions on science. The "Two Worlds" in the name of the festival comes from Gian Carlo Menotti's intention to have the worlds of American and European culture facing each other in his event; this concept would then be strengthened by the fact that it was held in conjunction with its "twin", the Spoleto Festival USA held annually in May/June in Charleston, South Carolina. That twinning lasted some 15 years and, after growing disputes between the Menotti family and the board of Spoleto Festival USA, in the early 1990s a separation occurred. Under Menotti's direction in 1986, a third installment in the Spoleto Festival series was held in Melbourne, Australia. Melbourne's Spoleto Festival changed its name to the Melbourne International Festival of the Arts in 1990. Following Menotti's death in 2007, changes occurred in the administration with the result that the Italian Minister of Cultural Affairs appointed a new Artistic Administrator who continues to run the Festival.

San Paolo inter vineas is a Romanesque-style, Roman Catholic church in Spoleto, region of Umbria, Italy. The term inter vineas refers to its location outside town, among the vineyards. A church at the site was founded in the 6th century in time of Pope Gregory the Great, when legend holds that a miracle occurred when a heretical Arian Lombard bishop was struck blind while holding mass. The first document date buildings here by the 10th century, when the church was affiliated with a Benedictine order convent of nuns. The church was rebuilt in 1234, and consecrated by Pope Gregory IX. In the 14th century, the monastery was abandoned and relocated inside the city walls, next to the church of Sant'Agata. In 1771, the church was again reconstructed and the interior redone. In 1965, the reconstruction attempted to highlight original late-Romanesque style of the early 13th century. The facade recalls two other churches in Spoleto, San Pietro and San Ponziano, with a central rose window and a suggestion of the central nave and two aisles. The interior has frescoes from the 13th century.

Sant'Eufemia is a romanesque-style, Roman Catholic basilica church in the town of Spoleto, in the province of Perugia, region of Umbria, Italy. The church is dedicated to Saint Euphemia of Chalcedon.

Santi Simone e Giuda is a Gothic-romanesque-style, deconsecrated Roman Catholic church located on Via Brignoni #40 in Spoleto, Province of Perugia, Umbria, Italy. It was built in the 13th century as a Franciscan church and adjacent convent.

The Teatro Caio Melisso is an opera house located in Spoleto, Italy and it serves as the main venue for opera performances during the annual summer Festival dei Due Mondi. The theatre has undergone several transformations and name changes since the late 17th century. The Teatro di Piazza del Duomo, also known as the Teatro della Rosa, built around 1667 was modernized in 1749 and re-opened in 1749 as the Nuovo Teatro di Spoleto. After an 1817 restoration and after Rossini had visited the theatre, it gradually fell into disuse and a new theatre was needed by the mid-19th century. The 800-seat Teatro Nuovo was built between 1854 and 1864 at considerable public expense. However, and in spite of the Nuovo, the old theatre was preserved and renovated once more with a new design and layout. Now renamed the Teatro Caio Melisso after a Spoletan writer, it re-opened in 1880 as a 350-seat, 3 levels of boxes plus a gallery opera house. The fact that two opera theatres existed brought Gian-Carlo Menotti, the Festival's founder and director, to the town since Menotti felt that Spoleto offered many attractions. The first festival was held in 1958. The Festival's inaugural presentation on 5 June 1958 was Verdi's Macbeth, but other less known and neglected operas characterized early Festivals. In addition to Menotti's own operas, most seasons reflect a broad range of periods and styles.

Spoleto Cathedral (Italian: Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta; Duomo di Spoleto) is the cathedral of the Archdiocese of Spoleto-Norcia created in 1821, previously that of the diocese of Spoleto, and the principal church of the Umbrian city of Spoleto, in Italy. It is dedicated to the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The church is essentially an example of Romanesque architecture, with a nave and two side-aisles crossed by a transept, although subsequently modified. It was built from the second half of the twelfth century after the city had been devastated by Frederick Barbarossa's troops, over an area where there had previously stood an earlier cathedral, dedicated to Saint Primianus (San Primiano) and destroyed by the emperor. A notable external porch and the belfry were added in the fifteenth and sixteenth century respectively. The façade is divided into three bands. The lower one has a fine architraved door with sculpted door-posts. Two pulpits are provided on each side of the porch. The upper bands are separated by rose windows and ogival arches. The most striking feature of the upper façade is the Byzantine-hieratic mosaic portraying Christ giving a Benediction, signed by one Solsternus (1207). He signed his work with the inscription "Doctor Solsternus, hac summus in arte modernus" (doctor Solsternus, supremely modern in his art ), calling himself an outstanding modern artist. Nothing else is known about him. He was certainly ahead of his contemporaries, because it would take half a century before the mosaics in Roman churches would surpass his style. The part of the belfry contemporary with the church reuses Roman and early medieval elements. . The interior was significantly modified in the 17th–18th centuries, though it has kept the original Cosmatesque floor of the central nave remains. Another survival is the frescoed apse with four Scenes from the Life of the Virgin Mary, begun in 1467 by Filippo Lippi and completed two years later by his pupils Fra' Diamante and Piermatteo Lauro de' Manfredi da Amelia. Lippi is buried in the south arm of the transept. Also noteworthy are the altar cross by Alberto Sozio, dated 1187, a Byzantine icon donated to the city by Barbarossa as a sign of peace and the frescoes by Pinturicchio in the Chapel of the Bishop of Eroli. Other frescoes from the 16th century are in the next chapel. The church also contains a polychrome wood statue of the Madonna (14th century) and a choir (16th century) with painted altar and tabernacle, in the Chapel of the Relics, under which lies the crypt of the former cathedral of San Primiano.

San Gregorio Magno is a Romanesque-style, Roman Catholic basilica church located in front of the piazza Garibaldi in the town of Spoleto, in the province of Perugia, region of Umbria, Italy.

San Pietro extra moenia is an ancient Roman Catholic church in Spoleto, Umbria, Italy. Remarkable examples of Romanesque sculpture adorn the facade. The term extra moenia refers to its location outside the city walls. The site was once an ancient cemetery (necropolis), but a church dedicated to St Peter was founded in the 5th-century, to house the chains that supposedly once bound the saint. The present structure was built between the 12th and 13th centuries. The facade is floridly decorated with ornamental figures, animals, and reliefs. Some of the scenes related events in the life of the saint, while others are moral tales, for example, a deer battling a snake.

The Church of the Madonna di Loreto is a renaissance-style, Roman Catholic church located in Spoleto, Province of Perugia, Umbria, Italy.

San Ponziano is a romanesque-style, Former-Benedictine monastery and church located in Spoleto, Province of Perugia, region of Umbria, Italy. The site is dedicated to St. Ponziano, the patron saint of Spoleto.