FONTI DEL CLITUNNO, A SLICE OF HEAVEN IN THE HEART OF UMBRIA

Just 12 minutes by car from Spoleto, in the province of Perugia, there is an oasis where one may relax among swans and lush vegetation. Fonti del Clitunno (Clitumnus Springs) with its turquoise and emerald-green waters, has enchanted ancient and contemporary poets, Italians as well as foreigners. Indeed, the beauty of this water garden is such that walking its paths, bridges, and waterfalls makes one feel as if part of a living painting. The Clitunno originates between Spoleto and Foligno, and 60 km further down it merges with the Topino River, a tributary of the Tiber river. In the area where the Clitunno river begins, the groundwater surfaces into several water springs. A few of these have created a lake of crystal-clear iridescent waters. In the 19th century willows were planted around it, and today it offers visitors the opportunity of enjoying nature’s magnificent beauty in an environment that is carefully watched so as to keep it as pristine as possible. This is the “sacred current” Virgil referred to in his “Georgics”. It is also the “beautiful river that provides shade with its forest” described by Sextus Propertius in the “Elegies.” Pliny the Younger, in a letter to a friend, described how the spring is made of “many and different veins”, which “give life to a pond so pure and crystalline that you could count the coins thrown into it or the stones glistening at its bottom.” George Byron’s “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage” pays tribute to the “sweetest wave / Of the most living crystal that was e’er / The haunt of river nymph.” Indeed, the list of poets inspired by this enchanting location is virtually endless. Among them Giosuè Carducci, Juvenal, Statius, Silius Italicus, Claudian, and many more.