San Gemini

San Gemini sits on the southern slope of the Monti Martani, ten kilometers northwest of Terni. The archaeological park to the north preserves a stretch of polygonal Roman paving, a gate or honorary arch, an amphitheater, mosaic floors and the remains of an aqueduct, all part of a municipium abandoned probably after an earthquake. The mineral springs rise just outside the populated centre, close enough that the town and the water source share the same ground without sharing a single street.

The walled core steps down the slope in two halves that still define the town's rhythm: the district built around the old fortified height and the district gathered around the main square, each fielding its own team when the joust between them runs its course every year. The cathedral, rebuilt in the nineteenth century but keeping a portal a great deal older, and the Gothic church on the square, each anchor their own end of the settlement. The Corpus Domini Infiorata blankets the procession route with petal mosaics nine weeks after Easter. A hill town this size holding a Roman ruin, a bottled spring and a rivalry that still stages a joust suggests a place where the past was never cleared away to make room for the present, only built alongside it.