"CHE NON SE VENDEMIJ INANCI TEMPO………": Thus begins a short piece taken from the 16th-century Statuti of Fratta (today’s Umbertide), which helps us understand how this land, rich with history and monuments, is essentially bound to man’s relationship with nature.

And it is thus certain that it was the Camaldolese friars of the Abbey of Montecorona that provided the foundations for a rational agriculture that respected the environment, such as that practiced in the Tiber Valley.

Down through the centuries this territory developed a culture connected with both spirituality and the need for defense against enemy raids. It is therefore not by chance that there are ancient castles and villages, churches and abbeys nestled in the thick woods and gentle hills cultivated with vineyards and olive groves.

Only a traveler who is prepared to empathize with what he sees, will be able to glimpse the ancient watchtowers of Romeggio, Castiglione dell'Abate, and Torre Certalta, castles and villages like Pierle, Reschio, Ascagnano, Sorbello, Montemigiano, Montalto, Polgeto, Preggio, Civitella Ranieri, Serra Partucci, and Antognolla, and the Hermitage of Montecorona and abbeys of San Salvatore and San Cassiano.

Arriving in Umbertide, a fortified military outpost where the mercenary captain Braccio Fortebraccio da Montone was imprisoned during the period of the communes and seignories, it will be possible to admire such precious remains of the past as the Rocca, now the Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Collegiata, Santa Maria della Pietà, San Francesco, San Bernardino and Santa Croce churches where, in the new civic museum, in Luca Signorelli’s "Deposition from the Cross" and the works by “Pomarancio”, the traveler will be able to see an exact depiction of the same gentle landscapes he has just visited.