The Norcia basin, which in the Pliocene was covered by a body of water that probably drained with the opening of the Biselli pass, was inhabited very early on by humans, of which many traces remain, starting from the Neolithic Age.

The Bronze Age and the early Iron Age are documented by a large number of artifacts found at Forca d'Ancarano and by two sets of funerary objects dating from as early as the 9th century BC. Between the 9th and the 3rd centuries BC, Nursia was inhabited by the Sabines, documented today by a village of huts and a necropolis found in 1998-99 outside Porta Romana.

In 290 BC Norcia was conquered by the Romans under the leadership of M. Curius Dentatus. By 268 the people of Norcia were granted full citizenship, and in 241 BC they were included in the Quirina tribe.

In 205 BC they were organized into a prefecture and sent militias to Scipio Africanus. Following the Social War, Nursia, as Norcia was called in ancient times, became a municipium. Christianity was grafted onto a pre-existing Jewish faith, and made its appearance with the evangelizer St. Felician in about the 3rd century AD, but Norcia did not have a bishop until the late 5th century, and later the diocese was joined with that of Spoleto.

Sometime around 480 AD Saints Benedict and Scholastica of Nursia were born. In 962 Otto I gave Norcia to Pope John XII. In 1163 Norcia was subject to the Vatican Chapter. Its dependence on nearby Spoleto was recognized in 1201 with its submission by means of a consul of the people, the first of its kind known to us.

If the 13th century was the time of impetuous growth, then the 14th century was the stage of the consolidation of the conquests made and, at the same time, of new struggles to guarantee as much vital space as possible and to limit the control policies of the ecclesiastic authorities, with which the freedom of the Commune had to reconcile itself constantly. Though contradicted by numerous episodes, the general line followed was that of faith to the Church and the Guelf party. After a brief period of aristocratic magistracy under a podesta, a popular form of government took hold, symbolized by the figure of the “Capitano del Popolo” and represented by a magisterial council controlled by the craftsman and merchant classes.

The 1400s was the century with the most light and darkness, marked again by periods of autonomy and by intense diplomatic activities with the papal court, with the potentates of half of Italy, and with the condottieri, or mercenary captains, upon whom (more so than on Rome) the fragile fate of the Commune often depended. Hostilities broke out with Spoleto, Camerino, Ascoli, Visso and Cascia, but a period of prosperity was also established that was based, as in the past, on trade, animal herding, textiles and crafts.

Norcia engaged in a difficult conflict with Spoleto that culminated in a number of armed skirmishes, the implications of which alarmed the courts of the time (1454) and caused the Church to become more stringent with the town of Norcia. In the early 16th century the yoke of the Church became more oppressive: the form of government was changed (1506) and the papal commissioner appeared once again, taking the place of the podesta and physically moving into his residence.

The establishment of the Mountain Prefecture in 1569 under Pius V brought with it the judicial, administrative and military protection that gave a new sparkle to Norcia, which had become the capital of a small state between the Marches and Umbria. The Mountain Prefect resided in the Castellina, a building created in 1554 especially for papal governor, which took the place of the Podesta’s Palace, torn down for the occasion.

The centuries that followed were a period of increasing stagnation for Norcia, compared to the vivacity and creativity of its previous times. The new merchant and entrepreneurial classes created wealth, but mostly within restricted oligarchic circles, the same that had access to local power. At the start of the 17th century, there were 1200 families in the town of Norcia and 4300 in the district, for a total of approximately 18,000 people.

Divided into 5 parishes, it had 3 monasteries for men inside the city walls and 4 outside the walls, 6 nuns’ convents, 4 hospitals, 8 confraternities, 10 guilds, 8 inns with lodgings and about 100 churches in the district. There was a fair amount of cultural activity in town: good public schools, a theater, music, and a literary academy.

This was a period of intense contact with the artistic circles of Rome, Florence and Naples, with many works surviving even in the remotest mountain villages. The 1700s are remembered for the two disastrous earthquakes in 1703 and 1730 that leveled the town and its castles, changing the face it had had since 1328. The ensuing demographic decline set off a severe depression, caused also by the modernization of the means of production and by the flow of goods on a much vaster scale than in the past.

The French Revolution caused an upheaval in the sleepy course of events in Norcia. In February 1798 the French Jacobins arrived, but the local insurgents and troops loyal to Austria forced them to leave the area on May 13, 1799. Norcia returned under papal government until 1809, ruled by a prefect as in the past. From 1809 to 1814 it was part of the French Empire.

The papal restoration made it the district capital in the delegation of Spoleto. In compensation, the old bishop’s see was finally reestablished (1820). A famine (1854), cholera epidemic (1855) and disastrous earthquake (1859) left Norcia in a pitiful state.

On September 18, 1860, a unanimous vote ratified Umbria’s entry in the Kingdom of Italy and the end of papal rule. Following the unification, the town was involved in a vast modernization project, with the construction of several fine public works: Porta Romana, Corso Sertorio, the monument to St. Benedict, the new Civic Theater, the Town Hall stairs and façade, the Santa Maria bell tower, the slaughterhouse, a new aqueduct and the building of several streets.

The new political climate and humanitarian projects arising under the banner of progress did not succeed, however, in resolving the many problems connected with the centuries of misery suffered by a large part of the population. Thus in the late 1800s and early 1900s some five hundred people from Norcia emigrated to America.

Meanwhile, electricity had already come to the area, and the first Italian public steam automobile service was established between Spoleto and Norcia (October 12, 1902). After World War I, work was completed on the Spoleto-Norcia electric railroad, which opened on November 1, 1926 and ran until it was shut down abruptly on July 13, 1968.

Norcia paid a heavy price in human lives in the two world wars. The Norcia mountains were the theater of partisan fighting and saw the passing of German troops and the arrival of the Allies. It was liberated on June 15, 1944.

On the eve of the third millennium Norcia was in the midst of an ambitious reconstruction project that began after the earthquake on September 19, 1979 and is now almost completed. The town has a population of about 5000 people.

The migration toward the big cities has slowed down considerably, due both to the inhospitality of the city and the renewed interest in the area as the ideal location for a peaceful life on a human scale. The economy is based on agriculture, crafts, and tourism.

(Historic notes taken from R. Cordella, Guida di Norcia, Città di Castello, 2002, p. 10 ff)

Ultimo aggiornamento: 03-08-06

Il sito è stato ideato e realizzato da Rita Longhi nel 2003 in occasione del Corso per Operatore Culturale cod. PG 02.03.31.027 PG 02.03.51.053 finanziato dal FSE tramite la Provincia di Perugia Assessorato alla Formazione Professionale