Spoleto

Town in Umbria, central Italy, on a hill 50 km/31 southeast of Perugia; population (2001) 37,900. There is an annual opera and drama festival (June–July) established by Gian Carlo Menotti. The town was a papal possession (1220–1860) and has Roman remains and medieval churches.

Spoleto was once Etruscan, and became a Roman colony in 242 BC, later resisting Hannibal in 217 BC. It was the capital of an important Lombard duchy (6th–8th centuries), and from 1247 to 1860 belonged to the Papal States. There is a partly 11th-century cathedral containing frescoes by Pintoricchio and the tomb of the 15th-century artist Fra Filippo Lippi.