Civita di Bagnoregio historical timeline

The site was settled by the Etruscans roughly two and a half thousand years ago, and they cut the tunnels, drainage channels and tombs that are still in the rock beneath the town. The Porta Santa Maria, the surviving gate, stands on Etruscan work.

Under Rome and through the Middle Ages it was the larger of the two settlements here and the seat of the bishop. Saint Bonaventure, the thirteenth-century theologian, was born in Bagnoregio, and the house associated with him in Civita has itself since fallen into the valley — which is a fair summary of the town’s history.

Earthquakes accelerated what the rain was already doing. A severe one in 1695 destroyed a substantial part of the town and cut the road connection, and the bishopric and the population moved to Bagnoregio. From then Civita declined steadily, and by the mid-twentieth century it was nearly abandoned.

The footbridge was built in 1965. Tourism arrived afterwards, and in 2013 the municipality introduced an entry ticket — the first Italian town to do so — specifically to fund stabilisation work. That decision is now studied elsewhere as a model.