by Bill Thayer
RomanSites (RS)
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LacusCurtius (LC)
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Homepage (English)
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Page d'accueil (francais)
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All things taken together, the quakes were mid-range. Few people were killed: 11, I believe. The central damage zone was relatively small and sparsely inhabited, extending from Gualdo Tadino N to Spoleto S, from Bevagna W to Tolentino E.

When I left, official sources were placing the number of damaged or destroyed monuments and churches at about 800, but often "damage" meant a crack in a fresco or some fallen plaster from a modern wall or vault, and no serious structural or artistic damage or threat. My estimate is about 300.

The most famous victim was of course the Upper Basilica of S. Francesco in Assisi; there is some serious structural damage to the attached Convento, and apparently some slight damage to the more important Lower Basilica.

I'm not much interested in anything after the Middle Ages, so am usually uninformed there; but the main medieval monuments damaged of which I have first-hand knowledge include:

    Annifo (fraz. of Foligno) - Romanesque church basically in ruins.
    Bevagna - structural damage to S.Michele; less to other churches.
    Foligno - the top of the Duomo's belfry came crashing down into the
nave, but the nave is artistically 18c and the piece of belfry was not
much; the beautiful Romanesque doors, both front and side, are intact.
    Foligno - the upper section of the (post-medieval) belfry of the
Palazzo Comunale crashed into the building: despite the publicity, this was
much less serious than it could have been.
    Montefalco - S.Francesco (with the famous Benozzo Gozzoli fresco cycle)
safe but structurally threatened; very fast action by the Mayor between 3
and 11 in the morning of 9/26 prevented the collapse of the vaults in the
11:42 shock.
    Nocera Umbra - the Torre split in twain and half of it collapsed.
    S.Giovanni Profiamma (fraz. of Foligno) - the 8c-9c portions are safe,
but other parts of the building threaten collapse.

Despite reports, damage to Spoleto and Perugia was slight, and to Orvieto quite minimal. (Corrections and updates welcome.)

Again despite reports, the churches of Spello, lying between Assisi and Foligno quite close to the epicenter, remain essentially undamaged. Typically, your ListOwner, depending on his mood, credits this to the Romans: Spello seems to be the only town in Perugia province to be built almost entirely (90%) on Roman foundations. [source: Umbria, piccoli centri della provincia di Perugia no author; Edizioni Porziuncola, SM degli Angeli (PG), 1994 with maps of foundations for each town]

The exception may be the church of S.Claudio in the plain below the city -- not on Roman foundations, although said to be on the site of a Temple of Saturn -- but any new damage just aggravated the serious pre-existing structural problems: just a few days before the first quake, I'd in fact signed a petition to get financial help for structural work on it.

I know of no damage to any Roman building or structure in the area; I visited a number of them after the main shocks. On Sunday Nov 2 in fact I crawled thru a section of Roman aqueduct near Spello; it was fine - all 400m or so of it, as far as I could tell.

  Since the quake, I've personally been to or seen the following other
Roman towns or buildings in Umbria, which were all open (or normally
closed) and appeared to me quite unaffected:
  CENTRAL QUAKE ZONE
    the Tempietto del Clitunno (5c or 8c depending on who you listen to)
    Spello /Hispellum/: walls, gates, arches; remains of the amphitheatre
    Bevagna /Mevania/: temple (I ate twice in the restaurant part of it)
    Pieve Fanonica: section of the Via Flaminia over a 1c culvert
    Budino: stretch of wall incorporated into old farmhouse
    /via Flaminia/ near Foligno /Fulginiae/: tomb cores
  NEARBY
    /Carsulae/: entire town appeared fine, although I've read local reports
otherwise
    Perugia /Perusia/: Etruscan Gate, Late Antique church of S.Angelo
  ELSEWHERE IN UMBRIA
    Gubbio /Iguvium/: theatre, mausoleum; museum (Eugubine Tables)
    Narni /Narnia/Nequinum/: the bridge sections
    Otricoli /Ocriculum/: entire town fine
    Norcia /Nursia/: the R exedral building under S.Benedetto
    Todi /Tuder/ - the Nicchioni; walls, gates;
                   the museum (coin coll. Tuder mint)

I have no first-hand information on the Temple of Minerva in Assisi /Assisium/, but in the Umbrian press not a peep about any damage to it, although the adjacent and semi-contiguous -- more about that eventually on my T-of-M webpage -- medieval Tower is unstable. With regard to Assisi, much ot the town is OK; seismic measurements showed that the actual felt shocks varied within the city in a ratio range of 1 to 6: the more or less cantilevered structure of the Basilica platform was the 6...

Chauvinistically Roman as ever, I note that a strongly suspected culprit in the S.Francesco collapse was the 1950s restoration use of concrete beams to replace wood above the vaults; and I juxtapose this with the beautiful concrete design of the Pantheon, where the Romans committed no such error, lightening the concrete thru various devices in the higher parts of the structure.

Related note: you may have seen reports about the Arch of Augustus in Rimini being struck and damaged by lightning in early September. I was in Rimini in October, "saw" the Arch, and can report that any damage must truly have been minimal: apparently we're talking a couple of pieces falling off the post-medieval crenellations; at any rate the Arch has been tightly encased in and supported by scaffolding for 2 years.

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