montefalco
 
Bus is the only way to get from Foligno to MONTEFALCO by public transport, a pleasing and intimate medieval village that's home to a superb collection of paintings which definitely merit a morning. Its name, meaning Falcon's Mount, was glorified with the appendage la ringhiera dell'Umbria - "the balcony of Umbria" - a somewhat hyperbolic tribute to its, nevertheless wonderful, views. It was also the birthplace of eight saints, good going even by Italian standards. Nowadays the town's sleepy rather than holy, with only a stupendously ugly water tower and very slight urban sprawl to take the edge off its medieval appeal. The strong, blackberry-flavoured local wine , Sagrantino Passito , made from a grape variety found nowhere else in Europe, is well worth a try; there's a good little shop in the main square for this and other liquid purchases, the Enoteca Benozzo Gozzoli .

The lofty location was a godsend to Spoleto's papal governors, left high, dry and terrified by the fourteenth-century defection of the popes to Avignon. They took refuge here, and their cowering presence accounts for the rich decoration of the town churches, a richness out of all proportion to the town's size. The cavernous ex-church of San Francesco , off the central Piazza del Comune in Via Ringhiera Umbra (daily: 10.30am-1pm; also June-July 3-7pm; Aug 3-7.30pm; March-May & Sept-Oct 2-6pm; Nov-Feb 2.30-5pm; L7000/¬3.62), houses the town's big feature, Benozzo Gozzoli's sumptuous fresco cycle on the life of St Francis. With Fra' Angelico, Gozzoli was one of the most prolific and influential Florentine painters to come south and show the backward Umbrians what the Renaissance was all about. Resplendent with colour and detail, the cycle copies many of the ideas and episodes from Giotto's Assisi cycle but, with 200 years of artistic know-how to draw on, is more sophisticated and more immediately appealing (if lacking Giotto's austere dignity). Among numerous other paintings in the church and excellent adjoining gallery are works by most of the leading Umbrians (Perugino, Nicoḷ Alunno, Tiberio d'Assisi) as well as a host of more minor efforts by local fifteenth-century artists. There are more early frescoes in Sant'Agostino across the main piazza in Via Umberto I, where you should also look out for some revered mummified bodies - one lot is halfway down the nave, and you can admire Beato Pellegrino, set out in a wardrobe at the top end of the left-hand nave.

The rest of the town is relatively low key but nice to wander and doesn't take long to see. Probably the most bizarre sight is the mummified body of St Clare (St Chiara), which languishes in the otherwise dismal church of the same name, five minutes' walk from San Francesco in Via Verdi (this is a second St Clare, not to be confused with the one in Assisi). Ring the bell and, if the nuns aren't deep in prayer, they may show you round the adjoining convent: in what turns out to be a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at monastic life, you're shown the remains of the saint's heart and the scissors used to hack it out. The story goes that Christ appeared to Clare, saying the burden of carrying the cross was becoming too heavy; Clare replied she would help by carrying it in her heart. When she was opened up after her death, a cross-shaped piece of tissue was duly found on her heart. Other strange exhibits include three of her kidney stones and a tree that miraculously grew from a staff planted in the garden here by Christ, during one of his appearances to Clare; the berries are used to make rosaries and are said to have powerful medicinal qualities.

Fifty metres beyond the church, preceded by a triple-arched Renaissance porch, is the chapel of Sant'Illuminata , strikingly if not terribly well frescoed by local painter Melanzio and others in 1510. Keep on heading out of town, turn left at the T-junction, and fifteen minutes of tedious walking brings you to San Fortunato , nicely situated amongst ilex woods and noted for the frescoes by Tiberio d'Assisi (1512), in the Cappella delle Rose (left of the main courtyard). Check out the macabre bundle of blackened bones under the altar of the main church, the remains of St Fortunato himself, martyred in 390.