News Preci

The town Preci is about 600 metres altitude on the right bank of the Campiano, a tributary of the river Nera. The origins of the town centre are said to go back to the vicinity with the local centres of prayer, some oratories in the zone. The first castle was built in 1276, the period when it went into orbit of the Commune of Norcia.

In the surroundings of Preci in the valley Castoriana is the abbey of Sant'Eutizio, one of the most beautiful and ancient of Umbria. According to the tradition it was found already in the 5^th century by the Syrian monk Eutizio and had since the beginning an important role not only on the religious field, but also in the civil one, draining wide stretches of the surrounding marshy countryside.

The proper monastery was founded by the Benedictine monks around the 10^th century, when they built the complex on the tombs of the Syrian hermits. Quite soon it became a very powerful centre, both economically and politically, with an immense landed estate.

The period of the greatest splendour of the abbey is recorded to have been between the 10^th and the 15^th century. Also the construction of the magnificent Romanesque church has to be ascribed to this period, indeed it was built around 1190, whereas the whole complex was built in the lapse of time from the 10^th-11^th century to the 14^th. Only the campanile is a much later work, it was carried out in the 17^th century by the papal architect Crescenzi.

Among the many activities in which the monks of the abbey excelled stands out the school of palaeography and miniature, the result of which is a collection of about sixty illuminated codexes, the ''Codici Eutiziani'', kept in the library Vallicelliana at Rome.

The ''Wording of Confession'' of Sant'Eutizio
Connected with the vicissitudes of the abbey of Sant'Eutizio is the story of an important literary document, a wording of confession written by a Benedictine monk, who translated faithfully a text from Latin in Italian vernacular. It is one of the most ancient known texts in Italian vernacular, defined by the linguists ''median Italian''.

One passage of the ''wording'' says:

''Me accuso de la decema ed de la primitia et de offertione, ke uno dei si ccomo far dibbi''

The main characteristic is here the presence of elements which are not typical for the Tuscan language, but these elements don't even regard a particular Umbrian dialect.

It is datable to a period later than 1095, but previous to the Canticle of St Francis.

The Surgical School of Preci - Beginning from 1200 developed mainly at Preci, but also in the surrounding territory, a thriving medico-surgical activity, that produced remarkable results and prop...