Nocera Umbra is a town and comune in the province of Perugia, Italy, 15 kilometers north of Foligno, at an altitude of above sea-level.
The municipality, covering an area of , is one of the largest in Umbria. It is one of I Borghi più belli d'Italia ("The most beautiful villages of Italy").
Etymology Writers long confused Nocera Umbra with the other Nocera in Campania, which the Romans called Nuceria and also Constantia. Nocera Umbra instead bore the name Nuceria Camellaria.
Pliny refers to its inhabitants as Favonienses and Camellani, designations whose meaning has been uncertain. Jacobilli attempted to explain them by suggesting that they arose when the inhabitants of Favonia (today Pieve Fanonica) moved to Nocera after their city was destroyed, and when the inhabitants of the castle on Mount Camellano likewise took refuge there after its destruction. These conjectures lack historical foundation.
History Antiquity From the late 8th century BC, the area of present-day Nocera Umbra was occupied by an Umbrian community. This community was established across the territory, with burial areas at Portone and Boschetto–Ginepraia. The name nuvkri, attested in an Umbrian inscription, is generally connected with this settlement.
From the 3rd century BC, following the Battle of Sentinum and the opening of the Via Flaminia (222–220 BC), Nuceria developed in relation to this major route. The settlement became integrated into the Roman system and is recorded as a municipium within Regio VI, with its population divided into the groups of the Nucerini Camellani and the Nucerini Favonienses.
During the imperial period, the urban center was situated around the hill now occupied by the historic core of Nocera Umbra and extended into the adjacent northern plain. By the 3rd century AD, the town possessed a structured civic body, attested by the presence of an ordo decurionum.
Strabo describes Nocera as a very populous city of important position because it stood on the Via Flaminia, a road much frequented under the Romans. He also mentions the wooden vessels and utensils manufactured there. Claudius Ptolemy includes it among the colonies established by Augustus.
After the fall of the empire, it suffered during the barbarian invasions of the Goths and later the Lombards, who devastated it.
Middle Ages In 571 Nocera entered the Duchy of Spoleto.
In the 8th century Nocera formed part of the domains of the Church. Anastasius recounts that when Pope Stephen III appealed to Pepin against Aistulf, who had occupied various lands of the Church, the latter was compelled not only to restore those territories but also to return Nocera.
In the placitum of Duke Gisulf held at Rieti in 761, among the judges appears Eleuterio, gastald of Nocera.
In 824 Nocera became a county, as did the neighboring territories of Gualdo, Fossato, and Sigillo.
Around 1100 it developed into a self-governing town and joined the Guelph League, formed in 1154, in opposition to Gubbio. In 1198 it returned under Church rule.
During the 13th and 14th centuries Nocera's history was marked by alliances, wars, and internal rebellions, set against the wider conflict between the papacy and the empire. In 1202 it submitted to Perugia, and in 1216 it allied with Perugia during a border dispute between Gubbio and Perugia. In 1226 Emperor Frederick II supported its occupation by Berthold, son of the deposed Duke of Spoleto. In 1249 Frederick II confirmed possession, and the city was sacked. In 1251, after Frederick's death, Nocera again submitted to Perugia, which also defended it from Gubbio.
In the early 14th century Nocera played a defensive role for Perugia, guarding Apennine passes. In this period drove the Ghibellines to seize a number of cities, including Nocera. In 1305 Guelph alignment was restored after the Trinci took Foligno, but in 1315 new rebellions were linked to a resurgence of the Ghibellines. In 1371 the municipal statute was revised. In the late 14th century Nocera was briefly occupied by Biordo Michelotti, before returning to Church rule in 1398.
In 1400 Nocera was taken by Gian Galeazzo Visconti, lord of Perugia, and after his death in 1402 it passed to the Trinci. In 1421 the Trinci were massacred in the fortress, followed by retaliation by Corrado Trinci. After 1421 the pope sent Francesco Sforza, who occupied Nocera for some months, after which it returned to Trinci control until 1439. In 1439 it passed again under Church rule.
In 1458, Jacopo Piccinino, who had been sent by the king of Naples to assist Federico of Urbino, instead occupied Assisi, Gualdo, and Nocera with his troops. After the election of Pius II, Ferdinand of Naples ordered Piccinino to cease troubling the cities of the Papal State and to abandon Nocera . Further rebellions followed, but the Church eventually regained control.
Early modern and contemporary era
In the early 1500s Nocera was occupied by Gian Paolo Baglioni after it hosted Perugian exiles. Afterwards it became definitively part of the Papal State. During the papal period it was administered by governors appointed by the state, responsible for justice, public order, and oversight of local councils.
On 15 February 1798, during the Roman Republic, Nocera became the capital of a canton in the Trasimeno Department. After the fall of the Roman Republic, in August 1799, Austrian occupation followed in Umbria. French rule returned in June 1809. In 1810 a single Trasimeno Department was established, and Nocera was made a canton-capital municipality. In the 1810s French reforms were introduced, accompanied by anti-clerical policies and the suppression of convents, monasteries, and religious corporations in the Nocera area. French occupation in Umbria ended in May 1814.
In 1816–1817 Nocera became the seat of a second-rank governor within the Delegation of Perugia. On 17 December 1860 a royal decree annexed Umbria to Piedmont. In 1863 the municipality was renamed Nocera Umbra.
In the mid-19th century the city itself had 3,719 inhabitants, of whom 1,082 lived in the city and 2,637 in the surrounding rural settlements.
In 1924 Nocera Umbra lost its courthouse, land-registry offices, and financial offices.
The town and the surrounding hamlets have been struck by earthquakes. The last major ones were the 1997 Umbria and Marche earthquakes which occurred on September 26, 1997. The damage caused by the last of these has been fully repaired in 2016.
Geography Nocera Umbra stands on the slopes of the Apennines at an elevation of above sea level, on the right bank of the Topino River. To the north lies the wide plain of Gualdo Tadino, while to the south flows the steep river Topino, and a ring of mountains stands opposite the town. Monte Pennino rises between Nocera and the territory of Camerino.
Because the settlement lies on the slope of the mountain, the streets are steep, while the square alone is level.
The climate is said to be very mild in summer and rather cold and dry in winter. The prevailing winds are from the east and north.
Subdivisions The municipality includes the localities of Acciano-Fossaccio, Bagnara, Bagni Stravignano, Boschetto, Campodarco, Casaluna, Case Basse, Castiglioni, Cellerano, Collecroce, Colsantangelo, Costa, Gaifana-Colle, Grillo, Isola, Lanciano, Le Prata, Maccantone, Mascionchie, Molina, Molinaccio, Mugnano, Nocera Scalo, Nocera Umbra, Palazzo, Pertana, Ponte Parrano, Salmata, Schiagni, Serre Parrano, Sorifa, Trombone, Villa Postignano, Ville Santa Lucia, Vittiano.
In 2021, 1,442 people lived in rural dispersed dwellings not assigned to any named locality. At the time, the most populous locality was Nocera Umbra proper (1,764).
Economy Nocera gained considerable renown for its mineral waters, which spring at the bathing establishments of Bagni, Bagnara, and Schiagni, all about from the city.
Hydrotherapy and spa tourism played a prominent role in the local economy beginning in the early modern period, later supplanted by commercial water bottling and export.
Mineral waters
Sorgente Angelica rises in the locality of Bagni di Nocera and is the oldest of the three main springs in terms of commercial exploitation. The practice of hydrotherapy with this water is noted from 1500, later reaching a high point with the opening of a thermal center near the spring, which became a sought-after destination in central Italy before declining at the end of the 19th century. At the same time, the commercial side expanded, and the water became increasingly exported.
The reputation of the water is celebrated in verses attributed to Francesco Redi, in which the character Arianna, suffering from illness, calls for the water of Nocera as a remedy. Over the centuries, numerous scientific writings addressed the characteristics of the water. In September 1805 Alexander Humboldt and Gay-Lussac came to Nocera to analyze it.
Sorgente Flaminia rises in the locality Le Case. Its waters are conveyed to the plant at Nocera Scalo, where they are bottled and marketed under the name "Nocera Umbra sorgente Flaminia". Sorgente del Cacciatore, also called del Centino, rises near Schiagni and is characterized by mineral properties considered suitable for therapeutic uses.
Nocera mineral baths The spring is also linked to a period in which Nocera was a destination for spa tourism among nobility and the bourgeoisie. The spring later lost its earlier prominence.
A road about long leads from the town to the establishment known locally as the Bagni. The establishment stands at the site where celebrated mineral waters emerge, known since ancient times. The spring rises from the flank of a mountain situated to the south-east of Nocera, at a distance of from the town..
Two large palaces stand at the site, with porticoes for walking and a spacious square decorated with a fountain that pours out abundant water. The more recent building stands on the road leading to the baths, while the other was constructed at the very point where the spring emerges. One inscription on the façade of the first spring near the old palace records that it was built in 1611 through the efforts of Monsignor Domenico Marini, governor-general of Umbria under Pope Paul V. An inscription in red stone on the façade of the palace records that the building was constructed by order of Pope Alexander VII in 1665.
Infrastructure and transport Roads The municipality is served by the SS 3 Flaminia rebuilt as a variant through the junctions of Nocera Scalo, Nocera Umbra and Colle/Gaifana.
Railways Nocera is served by the Rome–Ancona railway line, on which the station of the same name (in the frazione Nocera Scalo) is located.
Religion and culture Duomo
The Duomo is the principal church of Nocera Umbra and was the mother church of the former Diocese of Nocera and Gualdo until 1986. Located on the summit of the hill, the site is connected to the replacement of pagan worship with Christian worship, with the possibility that a temple to the goddess Favonia once stood here. In the 5th century, when the diocese of Nocera was established, the temple was turned into a church and dedicated to Mary.
From a restructuring around the 10th century, a Romanesque portal survives at a side entrance, decorated with carved stone motifs of vines and animals along the archivolt band. Another probable survival from this cathedral is a massive stone cross containing an incised cross, preserved in the diocesan museum. After the destruction of Nocera by Frederick II in 1248, the church was abandoned, and in 1448 it was rebuilt on the ancient foundations. The architecture was a single nave with a roof supported by large arches and timbering in a Franciscan style, still visible in the Church of San Francesco. The stone ornaments of the main façade belong to a modern renovation from 1925.