Celebrated 750 years of Monte Ruperto ‘Colonia’ of Tifernate in the Marche
Celebrated – There is a unique municipality in Italy where the mayor also boasts the title of baron for a fixed term, therefore for the duration of the mandate the mayor also boasts of a a symbolic noble title. In Città di Castello, the capital of the Umbrian Upper Tiber, with over 38 thousand inhabitants, home of the great maestro Alberto Burri and the actress Monica Bellucci, it has been like this for eight centuries, since history wrote a truly unprecedented page that has been handed down for centuries legislature to legislature.
This original “institutional-noble” union arises from the fact that the municipality of Citta’ di Castello is the owner of a small portion of territory, Monte Ruperto, which falls within the Marche region, defined as an “exclave” (territorial areas belonging to a Region which however found inside another). The particularity of this story is lost in the mists of time, when a remote barony in a remote place in the Apennines ceded the noble title to the standard bearer of Città di Castello, handed down to the mayors who succeed one another today. It is said that a great famine due to incredible snowfalls hit the Barony of Monte Ruperto in the 13th century and that none of the nearby towns sent aid to the small community’s aid. From the relatively distant – due to the means and roads of the time – Città di Castello arrived the food necessary for the small community to survive.
It is said that the baron, without heirs, ceded the small territory to Città di Castello as a sign of gratitude. The trace of the passage under the Tifernate dominion is dated 25 June 1256. It is history documented by a public deed that in 1274 the inhabitants of Monte Ruperto enjoyed tax breaks to the point of paying only “five sous per fireplace per house to be paid on the 27th August of each year”. And today marks 750 years since that singular event, to say the least.
Another historical truth is that in those years there was rivalry, often resulting in war, between Guelphs and Ghibellines. It is said, and here we deal with the second story, that the Barony of Monte Ruperto, being in contrast to the neighboring towns of Apecchio and Sant’Angelo in Vado, requested and obtained protection from Città di Castello. Both stories have foundations of truth that make them plausible. It is probable that when Monte Ruperto joined the Umbrian city it was not the annexation of an administrative island, but was in physical, political and geographical continuity with the Tiferno territory. It is no coincidence that even today the Umbrian border crosses the watershed by a few kilometers both beyond Bocca Serriola and in the Scalocchio area. In 1413 the Ubaldini, lords of the areas surrounding Monte Ruperto, submitted to the Montefeltro and shortly thereafter all their territories passed under the control of Urbino.
Exactly at that moment the barony became an exclave of Città di Castello in the future Duchy of Montefeltro. In 1630 the territories of Urbino became to all intents and purposes a province of the Papal State and from then on Monte Ruperto was no longer bordering another State, but with a province and legation of the same political entity. The destinies of the small community followed those of Città di Castello with its entry into the Kingdom of Italy between 1860 and 1861, which then became the Italian Republic in 1946. The “barony” has an extension of less than three square kilometers and no inhabitant.
The last family to leave Monte Ruperto was in the early 1970s. Within the territory, made up of woods and marked by mule tracks, you go from a minimum altitude of 412 meters above sea level up to a maximum of 727. The Candigliano, a tributary of the Metauro, delimits the northern border of the exclave. In the area there are some ruins of houses, some of which are recognisable, others also devastated by the theft of stones. Today in Città di Castello, on the initiative of the municipality, a day of studies was celebrated, “The Barony of Monte Ruperto. Origins and historical events of the Umbrian enclave in the Marche region”, to bring back into vogue those historical events rich in charm and suggestion, in the council chamber in the presence of the “mayor-baron” of Citta’ di Castello and the mayors of Apecchio and Sant’Angelo in Vado, together with the representative of the Province of Perugia and the vice-mayor of Tifernate.
The debate, interesting and a harbinger of further historical-legendary ideas and anecdotes, accompanied by unpublished images (some provided by Rai) was introduced by the journalist Massimo Zangarelli. Following the engineer’s interventions Giovanni Cangiwho in addition to his professional activity has long dedicated himself to the study of the territory and Mr. Leonello Beipresident of the Friends of the History of Apecchio and the architect Association Marcella Marianihead of the Urban Planning and Planning Service, Territorial Planning, Construction and Environment Sector.
Among the public present in the room, among the representatives of the Compagnia dei Balestrieri of Città di Castello in period costume, also Antonio Gnucci, 87 years old, from Tifernate, appreciated and well-known craftsman, one of the last inhabitants to leave the “barony” in the sixties: “a very strong emotion to be here today to remember those years spent in that enchanted place between greenery and nature with my family, my loved ones, my life. I am proud today to be able to talk about those moments”, he comments with shining eyes, with a lot of emotion and joy. “In addition to that of Monte Ruperto – it was remembered – there were other castles at the sources of the Candigliano: the castle of Scalocchio, that of Citerna sul Candigliano, the Castle of Baciuccheto, with related churches that recall Byzantine and Lombard traditions of worship.
Testimonies of historical-religious events of these lands in the Late Ancient and Early Middle Ages close to the Byzantine Corridor. Churches belonging to the Diocese of Città di Castello, both those of Scalocchio and Botina, San Lorenzo di Frigino, San Martine del Piano and Madonna della Cella, as well as the church of San Donato a Monte Ruperto, a dedication linked to the Lombard Bishop of Arezzo. In the early 1960s Scalocchio was the center of an interesting teaching experience known as “Pacts for Education”. Scalocchio’s schools were based at the Abbey. There were only two classes for elementary and middle school with respective tutors.
The lessons were held by teachers and broadcast by RAI. In the school there was therefore a television placed on the dividing wall between the two classes; from time to time it was turned from one side to the other. The peculiarity lies in the fact that in Scalocchio there was no electricity. Don Zefferino Caporali, parish priest of the Abbey, was responsible for the idea of placing an alternator powered by a hydraulic turbine located in a small waterfall in Candigliano, sufficient to guarantee the service.
Many young people were trained at the Scalocchio school who then moved to Città di Castello to attend high school, always assisted by Don Zefferino, assigned to the Parish of Trestina where, deservedly, a street was named after him”. At the end of the celebratory day, the mayor of Città di Castello gave his colleagues from the Marche region and some “ex-barons” mayors who preceded him, some ceramic plates with the image of the Barony of Monte Ruperto taken from the beautiful aerial representation bird of Città di Castello developed by Abbot Filippo Titi in the second half of the 1600s, made by the Tiferna masters of the “Ceramiche Noi” Cooperative, as evidence of another great artisan tradition of the city. The celebratory initiatives of the barony and the glorious past will continue with an excursion to Monte Ruperto, Sunday 23 June, organized by the CAI of Città di Castello.
