The grey medieval city — Eugubine Tablets, the world's largest Christmas tree, and truffle country
Gubbio is one of Umbria's most dramatically sited towns, its grey stone palaces and towers climbing a cliff face above the Camignano valley. The Palazzo dei Consoli (1332) rises sheer from a cliff-edge piazza on a feat of medieval engineering. Gubbio contains the Eugubine Tablets — seven bronze tablets (3rd–1st century BCE) that are the longest and most important surviving text in the Umbrian language and among the most important documents of ancient Italy. Every December, 700 lights outline the shape of a Christmas tree on the mountain behind the town — at 750m tall, officially the world's l…
Gubbio (ancient Iguvium) was an important Umbrian city before Roman conquest, whose seven Eugubine Tablets contain detailed ritual instructions for priestly colleges and are the primary source for our knowledge of the pre-Roman Umbrian language. The medieval comune of Gubbio built one of Italy's most complete Gothic civic centres between 1332 and 1349: the Palazzo dei Consoli, the Palazzo Pretorio, and the engineering miracle of Piazza Grande — a vast raised piazza supported on vaulted arches over the hillside. Saint Francis of Assisi is said to have tamed the Wolf of Gubbio here.