Type:

Luoghi della cultura; Ente/Istituzione

Category:

Museums

Narni Underground The Narni Sotterranea, consisting of some basement rooms located under the historical city center of Narni, extends from Via San Bernardo, inside the former Church of San Michele Arcangelo, to some rooms under the former Convent of San Domenico. The discovery of these underground rooms, in 1979, was fortuitous. Several of these rooms were brought to light and restored in the following years. These include a Pre-Romanesque church, excavated in the rock and dated from the 12th – 13th centuries, containing a painting cycle of just a little later period depicting— among other paintings—St Michael Archangel, to whom the religious edifice is dedicated. It is also possible to visit the Courtroom of the ecclesiastical tribunal of the Inquisition, where the instruments of torture of the time and the cell where the condemned prisoners were locked up, which still conserve the touching traces of the prisoners’ presence in the room, are exhibited for demonstrative purposes. The journey to discover Narni’s underground can be integrated with a visit to the Church of Santa Maria Impensole under which—in the crypt—there are two Roman water Cisterns and a Lacus—another large cistern—of the Early Middle Ages. These are placed right below the public fountain of Piazza Garibaldi, which in ancient times was called “Lake”. Furthermore, it is possible to visit the Roman Aqueduct della Formina.