Vitorchiano (a village of approximately 4,500 inhabitants in the Viterbo province. 65km north of Rome, at 310m altitude on a tufo butte above the Leia stream valley, 10km southwest of Viterbo city) is the Tuscia village that the Civita di Bagnoregio tourist circuit generates by contrast: while Civita (see the Civita di Bagnoregio guide for the full description of the most photographed village in Italy, accessible by bridge, crowds of 500,000 visitors per year) has become one of the most thoroughly touristified medieval villages in Italy, Vitorchiano, which occupies a comparable tufo butte in a comparable Tuscia landscape, with a comparable medieval historic center, and whose connection to the Civita di Bagnoregio community (the two villages have historical family and administrative links) is documented, receives perhaps 5,000-8,000 visitors per year and has no souvenir shops, no tourist restaurants, and no entrance fee.
The specific Vitorchiano added element: the main piazza of the historic center contains a full-scale Easter Island moai (the monumental stone head statue of the Rapa Nui tradition) carved in Vitorchiano tufo by Chilean craftsmen who visited the village in 1990 as part of a cultural exchange program. The Vitorchiano moai (approximately 4m tall, carved from the same gray volcanic tufo that the village buildings are constructed from, positioned on a platform in the main piazza) is the most improbable monument in the Viterbo province and the most consistently surprising element of a Vitorchiano visit.
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Vitorchiano: Village, Moai, and Tufo
The Medieval Historic Center
The Vitorchiano historic center (the medieval village on the tufo butte, the buildings, lanes, and the specific tufo construction quality of a Tuscia village that hasn't been restored but has simply aged continuously since the 15th century) is the most authentically medieval village environment in the immediate Viterbo area: no pedestrian barriers, no audio guide devices, no entrance fee, no tourist shops, and the specific inhabited quality of a village where the permanent residents use the same lanes and the same piazza that their ancestors used seven centuries ago. The Porta del Comune (the medieval gate, the specific tufo archway that marks the entrance to the historic center from the access road) and the main Piazza del Comune (the piazza with the moai, the medieval Palazzo del Comune, and the loggia arcade) are the primary spaces.
The Easter Island Moai
The Vitorchiano moai (the stone head in the main piazza) is the result of a 1990 cultural exchange between Vitorchiano and the Rapa Nui community of Easter Island, whose stone-carving tradition uses volcanic stone comparable to the Vitorchiano tufo. Chilean craftsmen from the Rapa Nui community spent several weeks in Vitorchiano carving the moai from locally quarried tufo, and the statue was inaugurated in the piazza in 1990 as a symbol of the geological and cultural connection between the two volcanic stone traditions. The moai has been in the Vitorchiano piazza since 1990 and is now as much a part of the village identity as the medieval buildings that surround it.
Q&A: Vitorchiano
Is Vitorchiano better than Civita di Bagnoregio?
Better is the wrong question: they are different experiences. Civita di Bagnoregio (the most photographed village in Italy, accessible by bridge, with the specific drama of the eroded butte and the crowds that document its fame) is a more visually spectacular single monument but a less authentically village experience. Vitorchiano is the village that Civita was before the tourist circuit arrived: inhabited, working, unrestored, and with the genuine daily life of a Tuscia tufo community. For the visitor who has seen Civita, Vitorchiano is the essential complement, the same landscape, the same building material, and none of the apparatus.
