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Gubbio, Italy

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Gubbio
Travel Community

Claudio Svaggio

Gubbio is a town and comune (township) in the far northeastern part of the Italian province of Perugia, (Umbria), 43Â°21N 12Â°34E. At 522 m (1713 ft) above sea-level, it clings to the first slope of Mt. Ingino, a small mountain of the Apennines. Its population according to the 2003 census was 16,800.

The city's origins are very ancient: as Ikuvium, it was an important town of the ancient Umbrian people in pre-Roman times, and is famous for the discovery there of the Eugubine (or Iguvine) Tables, a set of bronze tablets that together constitute the largest surviving text in ancient Umbrian. After the Roman conquest in the 2nd century BC Â? it kept its name with only a slight change (Iguvium) Â? the city remained important, as attested by its Roman theater, the second-largest surviving in the world.

The historical center of Gubbio is of concentratedly medieval aspect: it is an austere-looking town of dark grey stone, narrow streets, and Gothic architecture.

A fair number of the houses in Gubbio date to the 14th and 15th centuries, and were originally the dwellings of wealthy merchants; they often have a second door fronting on the street, usually just a few inches from the main entrance, narrower, and a foot or so above the actual street level. This type of door is called a porta dei morti (door of the dead) because it is commonly stated that it was used only for removing the bodies of any who might have died inside the house. This is almost certainly false, but there is no firm agreement on the true purpose of the secondary doors.

Gubbio is known throughout Italy for the Corsa dei Ceri, a spectacular race held every year on May 15, in which three teams, devoted to S. Ubaldo (the patron saint of Gubbio), S. Giorgio, and S. Antonio, run through throngs of cheering supporters (clad in the distinctive colours of yellow, blue and black, with white trousers and red belts and neckbands), up much of the mountain from the main square in front of the Palazzo dei Consoli to the basilica of S. Ubaldo, each team carrying a statue of their saint mounted on a wooden octagonal prism, similar to a hour-glass shape 5 meters (16 feet) tall and weighing over 400 kilograms (about 900 pounds).

The race has strong devotional, civic, and historical overtones and is one of the best-known folklore manifestations in Italy; the Ceri were chosen as the heraldic emblem on the coat of arms of Umbria as a modern administrative region.