Laudato si', mi' Signore, per frate vento et per aere et nubilo et sereno et onne tempo, per lo quale a le tue creature dài sustentamento.
Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Wind, and through the air, cloudy and serene,and every kind of weather through which You give sustenance to Your creatures.
- Saint Francis, Cantico del Sole
Walked only 11 km today - then the same number sightseeing within the city of Gubbio!
The sun was already hot when we set out from Loreto at eight a.m., descending into the Chiascio valley and following a little-travelled road between the wheat fields of the valley floor all the way to Gubbio. A cool breeze accompanied us all the way, making the sunshine bearable and threatening to blow our hats off!
We came to the Roman theatre before we arrived in the city itself. All of the medieval city of Gubbio is actually built over Roman and pre-Roman early Umbrian ruins, and many of the artefacts that have been found may be seen in the city's museums.
The Museo Civico in the Palazzo dei Consoli, which we visited while waiting until it was time to check into our hostel, contains among its many treasures a set of seven bronze tablets discovered in 1444 and dating back to the third to first century BC, engraved in the ancient Umbrian tongue, using letters borrowed from the Etruscan and Latin alphabets.
At the top of the museum is a loggia with a magnificent view over the valley, and a picture-gallery in what used to be the great hall of the palace, with a fountain in the middle of it - which must have been a very impressive feat of plumbing in medieval times, especially considering that Gubbio is built up the side of a mountain!
Even higher up the side of the mountain is the cathedral, and above that, the city walls.
My explorations also took me a little way up a gorge where goats clung to the rocky cliffs on one side of the canyon, while fortifications were incorporated into the rock on the other side. I walked as far as the site of a former convent and water mill.
Returning to the city centre, I popped into the chapel of the Confraternità della Misericordia and drew back the curtain of the confessional on the left side of the nave, as instructed: inside was an envelope marked with my name!
No, I am not being sent on a secret mission: I had simply asked the organisation which takes care of pilgrims on the Way of Saint Francis for another pilgrim credential, as mine is almost full of stamps. Their office was closed today so they left it there for me.
I also took a look at the chapel which is supposedly on the site of the cave of a wolf which had been terrorising the people of Gubbio and decimating their flocks until Saint Francis came to the town. He is said to have talked to the wolf, reasoned with her and struck a bargain: the people of the town would feed the wolf if she would promise not to eat their sheep but live in peace with all living things. The wolf lived peacefully for two years in the town before dying of old age and being buried beside the chapel, where indeed the bones of a wolf were found when the church was renovated in 1872.
Gubbio is where Saint Francis came to take refuge after breaking off relations with his family, when he had angered his father by selling off his stock of fabrics (his father was a wealthy cloth merchant) to raise funds with which to repair the derelict church of San Damiano. He began his ministry here, assisting the lepers in the leper colony outside the town (the site of which we will pass tomorrow morning). The place where he lived in Gubbio is now the church and monastery of San Francesco, where we are spending the night as guests of the monastic community. In fact we are the only guests this evening, and so we have a whole wing of the monastery to ourselves!
We cannot use the communal kitchen due to covid restrictions, so we went out to enjoy a local specialty, crescia: an unleavened bread eaten with a variety of fillings, mostly cured meats and cheeses, though we tried vegetarian versions. Mine is filled with a mixture of cabbage and potatoes!
Loreto - Gubbio 11 km
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