Explorer Orvieto

Pozzo della Cava is an underground complex in Orvieto's medieval quarter, built around a well cut 36 metres deep into the tuff. An Etruscan well was enlarged for Pope Clement VII in 1527–1530, sealed in 1646 and rediscovered in 1984. The route through nine linked caves also shows an Etruscan cistern and tomb, medieval kilns and a wine cellar.

The Museo Claudio Faina is an archaeological museum in Palazzo Faina, facing Orvieto Cathedral across Piazza del Duomo. The collection gathered by Counts Mauro and Eugenio Faina from 1864 includes Attic black- and red-figure vases, Etruscan grave goods and coins; the ground floor holds the civic museum with the Venus of Cannicella.

The Crocifisso del Tufo is an Etruscan necropolis at the foot of Orvieto's cliff, used from the 8th to the 3rd century BC and named after a crucifix carved in a rock chapel nearby. Its chamber tombs of tuff blocks line a grid of burial streets, many lintels carry the family's name, and an antiquarium shows grave goods from the digs.

San Giovenale is a Romanesque church at the western edge of Orvieto's plateau, built in 1004, possibly on the site of an Etruscan temple. Its tuff façade and square bell tower front a nave whose walls are covered with frescoes from the 12th and 13th centuries onwards; an inscription on the high altar is dated 1170.

Orvieto Cathedral is a Gothic cathedral dedicated to the Assumption, begun in 1290 to house the Corporal of Bolsena, the relic of a miracle reported in 1263. Its façade, worked on by Lorenzo Maitani from 1309, carries marble reliefs and gold mosaics, and inside the San Brizio Chapel holds frescoes of the Last Judgement by Fra Angelico and Luca Signorelli.

The Pozzo di San Patrizio is a well 54 metres deep, cut into the tuff of Orvieto's plateau between 1527 and 1537 to a design by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger for Pope Clement VII. Two separate spiral ramps of 248 steps, lit by 72 windows, let mules carry water down and up without meeting.