| Valtiberina | |
|---|---|
 Valtiberina seen from Citerna | |
| Geography | |
| Coordinates | 43°20′N12°42′E / 43.34°N 12.7°E Coordinates: 43°20′N12°42′E / 43.34°N 12.7°E |
Valtiberina is a valley crossed by the upper course of the Tiber (which originates from Monte Fumaiolo in Emilia-Romagna), unfolding between Tuscany, Umbria and Romagna, parallel to the Casentino.
Valtiberina is bordered to the west by Alpe di Catenaia and to the east by Alpe della Luna.
The description of the valley made between the 1st and 2nd centuries AD is very famous. by Pliny the Younger (61-113) in a letter written to his friend Apollinare. Pliny had his favorite villa in Valtiberina and thus describes the landscape:
The appearance of the town is beautiful: imagine an immense amphitheater which only nature can create. [...] Although there is an abundance of water, there are no swamps because the sloping land drains the water it has received and not absorbed into the Tiber [...]; the ground rises so smoothly and with an almost insensitive slope that, while you feel like you haven't climbed, you're already on top. Behind you have the Apennines […]. You know now why I prefer my villa “in Tuscis” to the one in Tuscolo, Tivoli and Preneste.
In recent times, the scholar Mariella Zoppi wrote:
a territory of great interest under many aspects that are revealed since its geographical location straddling the Tyrrhenian basin and the Adriatic and a crossroads between Tuscany, Marche, Romagna and Umbria. Like all border lands, today it presents itself as a formidable meeting point between cultures, art forms and traditions, its arrangement between the Apennines and the Tiber valley offers an incredible variety of landscapes, punctuated by a dense network of assets historical-architectural and natural emergencies, which are accompanied by the richness of an intangible culture made up of ancient traditions, legends, festivals and popular festivals, and a cuisine that ranges from a spartan simplicity to the exclusive delicacy of its truffles. We are faced with a cultural landscape with very high tourist potential, characterized by the sequence of its landscapes that from the sources of the Tiber passes to the Rognosi Mountains, where the alkalinity of the rocks makes the vegetation sparse, to the Alpe di Catenaria and the Alpe della Luna, from the sides covered with chestnut trees to which oak and beech trees are added, up to the monumentality of geo-morphological exceptionality such as the Sasso di Simone and the nearby Simoncello. [1]
Historically, Valtiberina has a medium-high level of seismicity. Among the earthquakes of the past, the strongest with ML between 5 and 6 were those of 1352–1353, 1358, 1389, 1458, 1558, 1694, 1781, 1789, 1917, of 1948, known as the Sansepolcro earthquake. More recently, there have been tremors in 1997 and 2001 with ML slightly higher than 4. In 1997, the shock of 2 October had its epicenter in Sansepolcro. [2] According to legislative provision 3274 of 20 March 2003, the Valtiberina area has been classified as having medium seismic intensity, that is, among those areas in which seismic events, albeit of lesser intensity, can create very serious damage.
The climatic classification (ex DPR 412 of 26 August 1993) includes the Valtiberina among the areas of Italy in which it is possible to use natural gas heating in buildings from 15 October to 15 April for 14 hours a day.
The Arno is a river in the Tuscany region of Italy. It is the most important river of central Italy after the Tiber.
The Tiber is the third-longest river in Italy and the longest river in Central Italy, rising in the Apennine Mountains in Emilia-Romagna and flowing 406 kilometres (252 mi) through Tuscany, Umbria and Lazio, where it is joined by the river Aniene, to the Tyrrhenian Sea, between Ostia and Fiumicino. It drains a basin estimated at 17,375 square kilometres (6,709 sq mi). The river has achieved lasting fame as the main watercourse of the city of Rome, founded on its eastern banks.
Umbria is a region of central Italy. It includes Lake Trasimeno and Marmore Falls, and is crossed by the River Tiber. The regional capital is Perugia.
Etruria was a region of Central Italy, located in an area that covered part of what are now Tuscany, Lazio, and Umbria.
The Apennines or Apennine Mountains are a mountain range consisting of parallel smaller chains extending c. 1,200 km (750 mi) along the length of peninsular Italy. In the northwest they join with the Ligurian Alps at Altare. In the southwest they end at Reggio di Calabria, the coastal city at the tip of the peninsula. Since 2000 the Environment Ministry of Italy, following the recommendations of the Apennines Park of Europe Project, has been defining the Apennines System to include the mountains of north Sicily, for a total distance of 1,500 kilometres (930 mi). The system forms an arc enclosing the east side of the Ligurian and Tyrrhenian Seas.
The Via Flaminia or Flaminian Way was an ancient Roman road leading from Rome over the Apennine Mountains to Ariminum (Rimini) on the coast of the Adriatic Sea, and due to the ruggedness of the mountains was the major option the Romans had for travel between Etruria, Latium, Campania, and the Po Valley. Today the same route, still called by the same name for much of its distance, is paralleled or overlaid by Strada Statale (SS) 3, also called Strada Regionale (SR) 3 in Lazio and Umbria, and Strada Provinciale (SP) 3 in Marche. It leaves Rome, goes up the Val Tevere and into the mountains at Castello delle Formiche, ascends to Gualdo Tadino, continuing over the divide at Scheggia Pass, 575 m (1,886 ft) to Cagli. From there it descends the eastern slope waterways between the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines and the Umbrian Apennines to Fano on the coast and goes north, parallel to Highway A14 to Rimini.
Marche or The Marches is one of the twenty regions of Italy. The name of the region derives from the plural name of marca, originally referring to the medieval March of Ancona and nearby marches of Camerino and Fermo.
Città di Castello is a city and comune in the province of Perugia, in the northern part of Umbria. It is situated on a slope of the Apennines, on the flood plain along the upper part of the river Tiber. The city is 56 km (35 mi) north of Perugia and 104 km (65 mi) south of Cesena on the motorway SS 3 bis. It is connected by the SS 73 with Arezzo and the A1 highway, situated 38 km (23 mi) west. The comune of Città di Castello has an exclave named Monte Ruperto within Marche.
The Province of Terni is the smaller of the two provinces in the Umbria region of Italy, comprising one-third of both the area and population of the region. Its capital is the city of Terni. The province came into being in 1927, when it was carved out of the original unitary province of Umbria.
Sansepolcro, formerly Borgo Santo Sepolcro, is a town and comune founded in the 11th century, located in the Italian Province of Arezzo in the eastern part of the region of Tuscany.
Monterchi is a Comune (Municipality) in the Province of Arezzo in the Italian region of Tuscany, located about 80 kilometres (50 mi) southeast of Florence and about 20 kilometres (12 mi) east of Arezzo. It sits in the northern part of Valtiberina, the valley where the Tiber river runs going from Emilia-Romagna towards Rome. The valley runs through Romagna, Tuscany and Umbria, parallel to the Casentino Valley.
The Parco Nazionale delle Foreste Casentinesi, Monte Falterona, Campigna is a national park in Italy. Created in 1993, it covers an area of about 368 square kilometres (142 sq mi), on the two sides of the Apennine watershed between Romagna and Tuscany, and is divided between the provinces of Forlì Cesena, Arezzo and Florence.
Mount Fumaiolo is a mountain of the northern Apennines range of Italy located in the southernmost corner of the Emilia-Romagna region, c. 70 km from the town of Cesena. It is at the border Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany. With an elevation of 1,407 metres (4,616 ft), Mount Fumaiolo overlooks the villages of Balze di Verghereto, Bagno di Romagna and Verghereto, in Romagna, and thanks to its extensive fir and beech forests, it is a well-appreciated tourist area of natural interest. It is most famous for being the source of the Tiber, as well as the river Savio.
The Montone is a river in the historical region of Romagna, which is in the present-day region of Emilia-Romagna in northern Italy. It is the northernmost river on the east-facing slopes of the Apennines to flow directly into the Adriatic Sea rather than entering the Po. Its Latin name was Utis or Vitis.
The Alpe della Luna is a mountain massif in the northern Apennine Mountains of central Italy. It is situated across the boundaries of Tuscany, Marche, Umbria. It is part of Appennino tosco-romagnolo. Its highest peaks are the Monte dei Frati, at 1,453 m above sea level, and Monte Maggiore (1,384 m). The sources of the Metauro, Marecchia and Tiber River tributaries are located in the massif area.
The Val di Chiana, Valdichiana, or Chiana Valley is an alluvial valley of central Italy, lying on the territories of the provinces of Arezzo and Siena in Tuscany and the provinces of Perugia and Terni in Umbria.
Monte Cusna is the 2nd highest peak in the northern Apennines after Monte Cimone. But, it is much steeper and more remote.
Tuscany is a region in central Italy with an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.8 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence (Firenze).
The 1920 Garfagnana earthquake occurred on September 7 in Garfagnana and Lunigiana, both agricultural areas in the Italian Tuscany region. The quake hypocenter was located 14 kilometres (8.7 mi) beneath Villa Collemandina. The maximum felt intensity was rated as X (Extreme) on the Mercalli intensity scale, and 6.6 on the Richter magnitude scale. It was one of the most destructive seismic events recorded in the Apenninic region in the twentieth century. Due to good news coverage, availability of official documents on the damage and abundance of recordings from surveillance stations throughout Europe, it was regarded as a first-rate case study to improve knowledge of tectonics and macroseismic analysis.
The Cathedral of Sansepolcro is a Catholic church in Sansepolcro, Tuscany, central Italy.