What is Corciano known for?

The Gonfalone della Peste, painted by Benedetto Bonfigli in 1472 with the town itself shown at the foot of the Madonna's cloak. Saint Francis stopped here in 1223 on his way back from Lent on Isola Maggiore; the Chiesa di San Francesco was built in memory. Carries the bread-town designation; the August Agosto Corcianese festa fills the piazze with choirs and tables of local pane.

When is the best time to visit Corciano?

Apr–Oct. April through June and September into October are the dependable months. The town is close enough to Perugia to absorb day trips without losing its own quiet at evening. July and August are warm but the walls hold shade well, and the Agosto Corcianese, the annual cultural festival of theatre and music in the piazze, runs through the last two weeks of August. November through March is quiet; the museums keep reduced hours and the bread-town bakeries on Via Cornelio carry the social weight of the season. Spring opens with green hills sloping down to Lake Trasimeno on the western horizon.

Corciano is a comune in the province of Perugia, Umbria region of Italy, about 14 kilometers from Perugia.

How do I get to Corciano?

From Perugia, Corciano is roughly 14 km by road.

Umbria · Perugia

Corciano

A walled medieval castello eight kilometers west of Perugia, where Saint Francis stopped on his way back from a Lent spent fasting on the island in 1223.

Known for

BONFIGLI'S BANNER
The Gonfalone della Peste, painted by Benedetto Bonfigli in 1472 with the town itself shown at the foot of the Madonna's cloak.
FRANCIS PASSED
Saint Francis stopped here in 1223 on his way back from Lent on Isola Maggiore; the Chiesa di San Francesco was built in memory.
CITTÀ DEL PANE
Carries the bread-town designation; the August Agosto Corcianese festa fills the piazze with choirs and tables of local pane.

When to visit

Best · Apr–Oct

Best
Hot or crowded
Quiet
Mostly closed

The festa: Michele, 8 May

Why come

Corciano sits on a low hill, its walls unbroken and its gate towers still marking where the open country ends and the centro storico begins. Settlement here goes back to the Neolithic, and by 1136 the Castrum Corcianum shows up in a papal bull of Innocent II as one of the possessions of the bishop of Perugia. What a visitor walks through is a medieval shell built over much older ground, the streets inside the walls still following the old castello plan rather than any later grid.

The town's two churches read as a pair of responses to the same passage. Francis came through in 1223, back from fasting on the island, and the Franciscan church went up to mark it; the parish church nearby holds the painted record of the plague years, the Madonna's cloak spread over a huddle of rooftops that is Corciano itself. Between them, on Piazza Coragino, the communal palace and its neighbor still face each other as the working center of the old commune. What the walls, the gate, and the two churches add up to is a hill town that kept building on top of itself rather than abandoning what came before, so that centuries of foundations, a medieval circuit, and a fifteenth-century painting of the town's own image all still occupy the same small space.

The Sunday letter

We haven’t written Corciano’s letter yet.

One town every Sunday, with the photo, the food, the festa. Be there when this one comes up. Free, by Peter & Sophia from Pietrasanta.

What to see

Chiesa di Santa Maria Assunta
Thirteenth-century main parish church near the main square, redone in neoclassical style in 1870. Holds the processional banner showing the Madonna sheltering the town's citizens under her cloak.
Gonfalone della Peste
Painted by Bonfigli for the parish church, the panel sets the town at the foot of the composition, a small huddle of roofs and walls beneath the sheltering cloak.
Porta Santa Maria
Main gate tower of the medieval walls at the northern entrance to the centro storico, still standing and still the way in.
Palazzo dei Priori
Medieval communal palace on Piazza Coragino, alongside the Palazzo del Capitano del Popolo, the civic centre of the old commune.
Chiesa di San Francesco
Gothic former Franciscan church, deconsecrated and now a museum, its bare stone interior kept plain rather than restored to parish use.
Piazza Coragino
Main square with a sixteenth-century well at its centre, framed by the civic palace on one side and the parish church on the other.

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Living here

Population 21,535
Commuter belti
Pharmacy in town
High school within a 30-minute drive
Nearest airport Ancona / Pescara, 1 h 50 min drive
Regional capital Perugia, 16 min drive

Tags & datadesignations · numbers · sources

Recognised as

The numbers

Elevation: 408 m
Population: 21,535
Surface area: 63.72 km²

On the map

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These figures were compiled from public directories — ISTAT, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata — and from the official listings of the guides named on this page. Town details change; verify with official sources before you travel.

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