Sulmona
— — the morning the veil falls.
Not only on a wall.
“A small city in the Abruzzo, between the Maiella and Morrone ranges, with a 13th-century aqueduct running the eastern edge of the main square. The Pelino family has been making sugared almonds here since 1783. Ovid was born in Sulmona in 43 BC, and his statue still stands in the square that bears his name. On Easter Sunday at noon the Madonna runs across the piazza to meet the risen Christ, and the black veil falls.
Sulmona, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
The place, in three passes.
Sulmona sits in the Valle Peligna, a broad inland valley in the Abruzzo region of central Italy, roughly 130 kilometres east of Rome at an elevation of 405 metres. The city is held between two mountain ranges, the Maiella to the southeast and the Monte Morrone to the north, both protected within the Maiella National Park, one of the wildest in the central Apennines. The historic centre turns around Piazza Garibaldi, which the medieval aqueduct of Sulmona crosses on twenty-one pointed Gothic arches, completed in the mid-13th century under Manfred of Hohenstaufen. The city is reached by the A25 motorway from Rome, about two hours west, or by regional train from Pescara on the Adriatic, about ninety minutes east.
The town's calendar turns on two long cycles. The confetti tradition (the sugared almonds Italian families distribute at weddings, christenings, and graduations) has been an industry here since the late 18th century, when Bernardino Pelino opened his confetteria in 1783. The Pelino factory still operates from the same building on Via Stazione Introdacqua, and a small museum on the second floor traces the history of the craft. The other cycle is the Madonna che Scappa in Piazza, held every Easter Sunday at noon: a statue of the Virgin in mourning is carried at a run across Piazza Garibaldi to meet the risen Christ, and as she moves her black mourning cloak falls to reveal a green dress beneath while white doves are released.
Sulmona's old centre is built largely from local limestone and a pale stone quarried from the Maiella massif. The most-photographed structure is the medieval aqueduct, but the Palazzo dell'Annunziata on Corso Ovidio is the city's masterwork, a complex begun in 1320 and built out over two centuries, its facade carrying three layers of architectural language from late Gothic through Renaissance to early Baroque. The Cattedrale di San Panfilo, on a rise at the northern edge of the old town, sits above a medieval crypt; the upper church was rebuilt after the Maiella earthquake of 1706 and stands today in essentially its 18th-century form. The pale stone reads warm against the dark green of the Morrone.