Rocca Paolina Underground

The Rocca Paolina is one of the most unusual sights in Italy: an entire underground medieval city, preserved beneath the 16th-century papal fortress that was built on top of it. Pope Paul III ordered the fortress constructed in 1540 to assert control over the rebellious Perugians. The builders demolished the houses of the city's leading families — the Baglioni in particular — and used the ruins as foundations. When the fortress was torn down at Italian unification in 1860, the streets below were still there.

Today they are accessible via escalators from Piazza Italia down to the old city level — a free, everyday public route used by commuters and tourists alike. Walking through the half-lit medieval lanes, with original doorways and archways preserved at waist height as the builders knocked them down, is quietly extraordinary. The Baglioni quarter's main street is particularly evocative. The passage connects Piazza Italia (upper city) to the lower town and the funicular station, so you can use it as a practical shortcut even if you're not there specifically to sightsee.

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A story
When Pope Paul III decided to punish Perugia for its 1540 "Salt War" rebellion against papal taxation, he did something more thorough than a fine or an occupation: he built a fortress directly on top of the houses of Perugia's leading families, demolishing entire streets to make the foundations. Centuries later, at Italian unification, the Perugians demolished the hated fortress — but the medieval streets beneath it survived, buried and forgotten until excavations revealed them in the 20th century.