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Umbria ( UM-bree-ə, Italian: [ˈumbrja]) is a region of central Italy. It includes Lake Trasimeno and Marmore Falls, and is crossed by the Tiber. It is the only landlocked region on the Apennine Peninsula. The regional capital is Perugia. The region is characterized by hills, mountains, valleys and historical towns such as the university centre of Perugia, Assisi (a World Heritage Site associated with St. Francis of Assisi), Terni, Norcia, Città di Castello, Gubbio, Spoleto, Orvieto, Todi, Castiglione del Lago, Narni, Amelia, Spello and other small cities. Geography Umbria is bordered by Tuscany to the west and the north, Marche to the east and Lazio to the south. Partly hilly and mountainous, and partly flat and fertile owing to the valley of the Tiber, its topography includes part of the central Apennines, with the highest point in the region at Monte Vettore on the border of the Marche, at 2,476 metres (8,123 feet); the lowest point is Attigliano, 96 metres (315 feet). It is the only Italian region having neither a coastline nor a common border with other countries. The comune of Città di Castello has an exclave named Monte Ruperto within Marche. Contained within Umbria is the hamlet of Cospaia, which was a tiny republic from 1440 to 1826, created by accident. Umbria is crossed by two valleys: the Umbrian valley ("Valle Umbra"), stretching from Perugia to Spoleto, and the Tiber Valley ("Val Tiberina"), north and west of the first one, from Città di Castello to the border with Lazio. The Tiber River forms the approximate border with Lazio, although its source is just over the Tuscan border. The Tiber's three principal tributaries flow southward through Umbria. The Chiascio basin is relatively uninhabited as far as Bastia Umbra. About 10 kilometres (6 miles) farther on, it joins the Tiber at Torgiano. The Topino, cleaving the Apennines with passes that the Via Flaminia and successor roads follow, makes a sharp turn at Foligno to flow NW for a few kilometres before joining the Chiascio below Bettona. The third river is the Nera, flowing into the Tiber further south, at Terni; its valley is called the Valnerina. The upper Nera cuts ravines in the mountains; the lower, in the Tiber basin, has created a wide floodplain. In antiquity, the plain was covered by a pair of shallow, interlocking lakes, the Lacus Clitorius and the Lacus Umber. They were drained by the Romans over several hundred years. An earthquake in the 4th century and the political collapse of the Roman Empire resulted in the refilling of the basin. It was drained a second time, almost a thousand years later, during a 500-year period: Benedictine monks started the process in the 13th century, and the draining was completed by an engineer from Foligno in the 18th century. The eastern part of the region, being crossed by many faults, has been often hit by earthquakes: the last ones have been that of 1997 (which hit Nocera Umbra, Gualdo Tadino, Assisi and Foligno) and those of 2016 (which struck Norcia and the Valnerina). In literature, Umbria is referred to as Il cuore verde d'Italia or The green heart of Italy. The phrase is taken from a poem by Giosuè Carducci, the subject of which is the source of the Clitunno River in Umbria. History Antiquity The region is named for the Umbri people, an Italic people which was absorbed by the expansion of the Romans. The Umbri, unlike the Etruscans, with few exceptions did not live in an urban society, but occupied small dwellings located in the Apennines. Pliny the Elder recounted a fanciful derivation for the tribal name from the Greek ὄμβρος (ombros, "a shower"), which led to the idea that they had survived the Deluge familiar from Greek mythology, allowing them to claim to be the most ancient race in Italy. In fact, they belonged to a broader family of neighbouring peoples with similar roots. Their language was Umbrian, one of the Italic languages, related to Latin and Oscan. The town of Gubbio houses today the longest and most important document of any of the Osco-Umbrian group of languages, the Iguvine Tablets, written in Umbrian at the turn of the 2nd and 1st centuries BC. The northern part of the region was occupied by Gallic tribes. The Umbri probably sprang, like neighbouring peoples, from the creators of the Terramara, and Proto-Villanovan culture in northern and central Italy, who entered north-eastern Italy at the beginning of the Bronze Age. The Etruscans were the chief enemies of the Umbri. The Etruscan invasion extended from the western seaboard towards the north and east from about 700 to 500 BC. They eventually drove the Umbrians towards the Apennine uplands and captured 300 Umbrian towns. Nevertheless, the Umbrian population does not seem to have been eradicated in the conquered districts. The border between Etruria and Umbria was the Tiber river, as testified by the ancient name of Todi, Tular ("border"). After the downfall of the Etruscans, Umbrians aided the Samnites in their struggle against Rome (308 BC). Later communications with Samnium were impeded by the Roman fortress of Narnia (founded 229 BC on the place of the umbrian Nequinum, conquered in 299 BC). Romans defeated the Samnites and their Gallic allies in the battle of Sentinum (295 BC). Allied Umbrians and Etruscans had to return home and defend each of their territories against simultaneous Roman attacks, leaving the Samnites without their help at Sentinum. The Roman victory at Sentinum initiated a period of integration under the Roman rulers, who established some colonies, such as Spoletium, and built the via Flaminia (219 BC). The via Flaminia became a principal vector for Roman development in Umbria. During Hannibal's invasion during the second Punic war, the battle of Lake Trasimene was fought inside the borders of today's Umbria, but the local people did not aid the invader. During the Roman civil war between Mark Antony and Octavian (40 BC), the city of Perugia supported Antony and was almost completely destroyed by Octavian. In Pliny the Elder's time, 49 independent communities still existed in Umbria, and the abundance of inscriptions and the high proportion of recruits in the imperial army attest to its population. Under Augustus, Umbria became the Regio VI of Roman Italy. Modern Umbria is different from Roman Umbria. Roman Umbria extended through most of what is now the northern Marche to Ravenna, but excluded the west bank of the Tiber, which belonged to Etruria. Thus Perugia was an Etruscan city and the area around Norcia was in the Sabine territory. After the collapse of the Roman empire, Ostrogoths and Byzantines struggled for supremacy in the region, and the decisive battle of the war between these two peoples took place near modern Gualdo Tadino. Middle Ages Soon after the end of the Gothic war, the Lombards invaded Italy and founded the duchy of Spoleto, covering much of today's southern Umbria, but the Byzantine were able to keep in the region a corridor a.... Discover the Aa Vv popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Aa Vv books.