Almanacco - Food and Wine in Orvieto

Parrano

Parrano is in the western part of the Alto Orvietano area and is located on the slopes of Monte Peglia at 441 m. above sea level. It is around 10 km. from the toll highway exit of Fabro. The name comes from the Latin “Parra” (Upupa or hoopoe bird). the hamlet developed around the castle in the 11th century. In the “Tane del diavolo” or “Devil’s Dens” nearby, a complex of grottoes of particular environmental and speleological interest, archaeological material dating to the Upper Palaeolithic period and the Bronze Age have been found. It is one of the most significant sites for Paleolithic settlements in Central Italy. Sulfur-magnesium springs flow out at the foot of the “Devil’s Dens”. In 1994 an interesting Etruscan tomb was found near the località Soriano, containing fine artefacts and pottery.

The “Forra of Parrano”

The first inhabitans of Parrano – cave dwellers of the Upper Palaeolithic period – preferred this site because of the spacious and “convenient” caves and the magnificent spring of spa water right below their rocky dwellings. Reminders of this heroic age are the stony caves (“le Tane del diavolo”), the wild nature of the environment (where the extremely rare Zerynthia Polixena Cassandra, a lovely butterfly, can be found, and, naturally, the water, object of a project to use it to advantage as a spa.
In the “Tane” or caves the semi-carbonized seeds of wheat and tick-beans were also found.

Scholars, Physicians and Wise Men

The father of experimental psychology in Italy, Sancte De Sanctis, was born in Parrano. He was a pioneer in the field and in 1906 occupied the first professorship of Psychology at the “Sapienza” in Rome. Gaetano Fratini, magistrate and poet, was also born in Parrano. He was the father of Gaio Fratini, also an epigrammatist poet and writer.

to see

Center for Territorial Documentation
Medieval hamlet
“Forra of Parrano” and the “Tane del Diavolo”
Spa springs
Wine cellars of Cantone
The hamlet of Pievelunga
The age-old chestnut tree