Long Ago in Spoleto: the Road to Monteluco

June 11, 2021 News, Offerte, Visore Home No comments

1917: The Monteluco carriage road is built thanks to prisoners of war.

An integral part of Spoleto’s historical identity, a very ancient religious enclave, a mystical place since pagan times (“Lucus”), a wood protected by laws such as the “Lex Spoletina”, an anchorite and hermitic refuge for Christianity since the 5th century, Monteluco and its sacredness must bow before the flattery of modernity, when, in 1916-17, the City Administration decided to build a carriage road to easily connect the Ponte delle Torri area to the top of the mountain, breaking the centuries-old isolation of a meditative refuge that had seduced St. Francis and Michelangelo and opening up its solitary and silent woodlands to the whirlwind of cars.

Reading the newspapers of the time kept at the Carducci library, it is possible to reconstruct the genesis, early stages and implementation of a project that intended to make Monteluco one of the cornerstones of the city’s tourist development, sacrificing, without too much hesitation, the ascetic aura of the place to make it an oasis of hospitality and well-being, but justifying it all for the future of the community.

The headline of Il Messaggero of 15 December 1916 was ‘Per l’avvenire di Spoleto’ (‘For the future of Spoleto’), describing the reasons that had led to the idea of a new road, winding up the slopes of the mountain, intended for cars, and setting few environmental qualms, in fact supporting a process that for some years had led to more and more small villas being built on the wooded slopes of Monteluco, and ancient hermitages being transformed into welcoming resorts, and even calling for the construction of new villas and the establishment of health and rest homes.

Il Messaggero | 15 dicembre 1916

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Approved by the city council in October of that year, the project – as is explicitly stated in the article, which contains excerpts from the report – was based on a few fixed points: to unite the small villas already built or under construction as easily as possible with the city; to pass close to San Giuliano, “this artistic glory of the region”; “to exploit the beauty of the mountain itself, which is almost impossible at present because of the enormous difficulty of access”. By taking advantage of the labour of prisoners of war, the costs could be considerably reduced, amounting to 72,000 lire, at the expense of the city and the private owners of the land, in ten years.

From the volume “Monte Luco” by Carlo Bandini, 1922, we offer excerpts from the preliminary project: The road starts from Ponte S. Pietro on the Tessino torrent at an altitude of about 366 m. and, following the downhill slope of the road known as Ponte delle Torri, it then develops along the slope of Monte di S. Giuliano, touching, by means of opportune turns, Monte Luco. At about 4 kilometres, it reaches a point of access close to the summit of S. Giuliano, at the height of 600 metres above sea level. From this point, with a suitable transversal, it reaches the magnificent slope of Monte Luco at 650 metres, from where it continues up to 787 metres, which is approximately the height of the Franciscan monastery. The purpose of this last stretch is to connect S. Giuliano and therefore also Spoleto with the upper slope of the Mount and the summit itself. It has a constant width of 5 m and a maximum slope of 6° with curves of a radius of no less than 20 m. Its overall length is about 7 kilometres.

To follow the progress of the work, we can look at the media of the time. On 21 January 1917, the weekly newspaper ‘Il Risveglio’ explained the reasons (practical, aesthetic and environmental) for favouring the side facing Spoleto for the development of the road, but complained about the obstacles and resistance that the financial and technical project, already approved, encountered from some private individuals who were slow to reach an economic agreement with the Municipality. In the following issue, “il Risveglio” is pleased to report that an agreement has finally been reached.

Il Risveglio | 26 novembre 1916

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In March 1917, “Il Messaggero” announced that prisoners of war were expected from Cassino to start work on the hermitage of San Antonio. In an article in April 1917 it is said that the work had already begun a few days earlier. The following month, both “Il Messaggero” and “Il Risveglio” took part in an inspection, driving along the carriageway and describing in detail the project of the engineer Chiavarino, once again underlining how this was a precious opportunity for the development of Spoleto and emphatically praising the spectacle offered to the eye of those driving along it. But despite the fact that work is proceeding apace, the inauguration will take longer than expected.

“Two years later, on 29 October 1919, ‘Il Messaggero’ reported on a new inspection, attended by Mayor Ettore Santi, councillors, councillors and a representative of the press, to take one last ecstatic look at the ‘road about to be constructed, which can now be said to be built‘. Despite the criticism it has received, an epoch-making undertaking can now be contemplated in its entirety: “our historic Monteluco will certainly have a future, especially in the summer season, with this new, comfortable road“.

And yet, shortly after completion of works, the topic of accessibility on Monteluco came up again, proposing a daring idea: the construction of a cable car linking the mountain and the town, a project that was never realised, the story of which we have already told in one of the first issues of this column.

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