ORVIETO, a town in Umbria, Italy, on the main road from Florence to Rome, situated on an almost isolated volcanic rock, about 770 feet above the plain. It is now the capital of a province, the seat of a bishop, and in 1881 had a population of 8626. The town is of Etruscan origin, and is said to have joined the Volscians in their war against Rome; it is the Urbibentum of Procopius (with which the Herbanum of Pliny has been conjecturally identified), and the mediaeval Urbs Vetus (whence the modern name). Owing to the strong Guelphic sympathies of the inhabitants, and the inaccessible nature of the site, Orvieto has been constantly used as a place of refuge by the popes, of whom no less than thirty-two have at different times found shelter there. The town is very picturesque, both from its magnificent position and also from the unusually large number of fine 13th-century houses and palaces which still exist in its streets. The chief glory of the place is its splendid cathedral, dedicated to the Virgin; it was founded in 1290 by Nicholas IV. on the site of an older church; it was designed by Lorenzo Maitani, a Sienese architect, and from the 13th till the 16th century was enriched by the labours of a whole succession of great Italian painters and sculptors (see Orcagna). The exterior is covered with black and white marble; the interior is of grey limestone with bands of a dark basaltic stone. The plan consists of large rectangular nave, with semicircular recesses for altars, opening out of the aisles, north and south. There are two transeptal chapels, and a short choir. The most magnificent part of the exterior is the west façade, built of richly-sculptured marble, divided into three gables with intervening pinnacles, much resembling the front of Siena cathedral, the work ...