Today a municipality in the province of Viterbo, the small centre of Blera grew up between the 8th and 7th centuries B.C.E., a period of time responsible for the numerous necropolises that have made the surrounding area famous. The origin of its name could derive from Palise-ra, i.e. “city of Plaise”, a person’s name, borne out by the Roman nomen Plaisena and a spindle from the 4th century B.C.E. found in a tomb in Genoa.
The city became Lombard after the Etruscan and Roman eras, and was destroyed during the Guelph-Ghibelline wars in the 13th century. In the 1400s Pope Boniface IX entrusted it to the Anguillara family, alternating control until the Unification of Italy. In the 20th century, archaeological missions to the site included a German dig in 1914 and one organized by the Swedish Institute of Classical Studies and King Gustav VI of Sweden himself in the 1950s-1960s.
The main church, Santa Maria Assunta in Cielo e San Vivenzio, is dedicated to the patron saint, St. Vivenzio, a 5th century Bishop of Blera. It has a Romanesque origin but was profoundly overhauled in the 18th century. The remains of the saint are conserved in the 11th century crypt.
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