Ferentillo, the Nera river and the mummy museum

Ferentillo was founded in 740 by Liutprando, king of the Lombards from Ferento (hence Ferentillum, small Ferento), who decided to reclaim the marshy and uninhabited territory of the Valnerina. Ferentillo is renowned first and foremost for its mummy museum (one of the most visited museums in Umbria), as well as for its history. A small Italian town of around 1800 inhabitants in the province of Terni, Ferentillo is divided into two villages separated by the Nera river, Matterella and Precetto, rich in artistic buildings, palaces and churches that blossom among the articulated alleys. The Ferentillo mummies museum is a place where mummification occurs through natural processes, without the use of artificial elements and this is still the subject of study today. The museum offers the visitor the spectacle of 24 mummified bodies which were found after the Napoleonic Edict of Saint Cloud “Décret Impérial sur les Sépultures”, which, since 1806, prohibited burial within the perimeter of the city walls, providing for the dislocation of bodies extra moenia. It was on that occasion that it was discovered that the bodies preserved in the crypt of the church of Santo Stefano di Precetto di Ferentillo were naturally mummified. The presence of the Nera river is one of the elements that caused mummification through the humidity of the soil.
In ancient times the Precetto area was a marshy and inhospitable territory, then reclaimed when it was chosen by the first inhabitants to settle there, however the soil has preserved various calcareous elements which have proven, in combination with the local air, a natural preservative of the bodies . It is also possible to go rafting in the Nera river.