Complesso Museale di San Francesco, Montefalco

The Complesso Museale di San Francesco occupies the deconsecrated church of San Francesco in Montefalco, a hill town in central Umbria known as the 'balcony of Umbria' for its sweeping views over the Valle Umbra. The undisputed treasure is the apse, where Benozzo Gozzoli painted a radiant fresco cycle of the Life of Saint Francis between 1450 and 1452, twelve scenes arranged in three registers that draw on the model of Assisi while glowing with Gozzoli's own bright colour, graceful figures and Renaissance landscapes; framed portraits of poets and sages, including Dante, Petrarch and Giotto, run beneath them. The rest of the church, now a municipal museum, gathers detached frescoes and paintings by other artists who worked in the town, among them Perugino, whose Nativity adorns one of the side chapels, along with sculpture, a picture gallery upstairs and a crypt of fragments below. The single nave brings these works together in one walkable space, and a visit usually takes an hour to ninety minutes. Montefalco rewards lingering: it is the home of the prized Sagrantino di Montefalco red wine, and the museum visit pairs naturally with a tasting in one of the town's cellars or a circuit of the panoramic ramparts. Opening hours are seasonal, so checking ahead avoids disappointment, and the museum charges a modest admission. The complex sits just off the central Piazza del Comune and is reached by car, set among the vineyards south-east of Foligno in the heart of Umbria.