Todi is a town and comune (municipality) of the province of Perugia in central Italy. It is perched on a tall two-crested hill overlooking the east bank of the river Tiber, with distant views in every direction. Todi is a member city of the Cittaslow movement.
In the 1990s, Richard S. Levine, a professor of architecture at the University of Kentucky, chose Todi as the model sustainable city, because of its scale and its ability to reinvent itself over time. After that, the Italian press reported on Todi as the world’s most livable city. Demand for real estate rose sharply, the prices as well. Many Tuderti moved away. After a few years, the situation finally calmed down.
Almost all Todi’s main medieval monuments — the co-cathedral church (Duomo), the Palazzo del Capitano, the Palazzo del Priore and the Palazzo del Popolo — front on the main square on the lower breast of the hill: the piazza is often used as a movie set. The whole landscape is sited over some huge ancient Roman cisterns, with more than 500 pits, which remained in use until 1925.
Todi is surrounded by three more or less complete concentric walls: the outermost is medieval, the middle wall is Roman, and the innermost is recognizable as partly Etruscan. Sights include also a colossal Roman niched substructure of uncertain purpose (the Nicchioni), the slight ruins of a Roman amphitheatre, about a dozen smaller churches, and a few Renaissance or classical palazzi, among which the most important is one by Vignola, round out the sights. The neighbourhood of the city has many historical castles, fortresses and ancient churches including the famous Todi Castle in Umbria which was once used for the purpose of war has now been restored by the Santoro family and is used as a vacation spot for visitors.
