Description : Todi is a town and comune (municipality) of the province of Perugia (region of Umbria) in central Italy. It is perched on a tall two-crested hill overlooking the east bank of the river Tiber, commanding distant views in every direction. In the 1990s, Richard S. Levine, a professor of Architecture at the University of Kentucky, described 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. According to the legend, said to have been recorded around 1330 BC by a mythological Quirinus Colonus, Todi was built by Hercules, who here killed Cacus, and gave the city the name of Eclis. Historical Todi was founded by the ancient Italic people of the Umbri, in the 8th-7th century BC, with the name of Tutere. The name means "border", the city being located on the frontier with the Etruscan dominions. It probably was still under the latters' influence when it was conquered by the Romans in 217 BC. According to Silius Italicus, it had a double line of walls that stopped Hannibal himself after his victory at Lake Trasimeno. In most Latin texts, the name of the town took the form Tuder. A notable find dating back to this age is an ancient bronze statue of Mars , which was excavated in 1835 in the nearby Montesanto; it is now at the Vatican Museum, but a copy is kept in the crypt of the Cathedral. Christianity spread to Todi very early, through the efforts of St. Terentianus. Bishop St. Fortunatus became the patron saint of the city for his heroic defense of it during the Gothic siege. In Lombard times, Todi was part of the Duchy of Spoleto. After the 12th century the city started to expand again: the government was held first by consuls, and then by podestà and a people's captain, some of whom achieved wide fame. In 1244 the new quarters, housing mainly the new artisan classes, were enclosed in a new circle of walls. Benedetto Caetani, the latter Pope Boniface VIII, started his career as a Canon in the Cathedral of Todi in 1260. He never forgot his roots in Todi, later describing the city as "the dwelling place of my early youth," the city which "nourished me while still of tender years," and as a place where he "held lasting memories." In 1290 the city had 40,000 inhabitants. Communal autonomy was lost in 1367 when the city was annexed to the Papal States: the local overlordship shifted among various families (the Tomacelli, the Malatesta, Braccio da Montone, Francesco Sforza and others). Although reduced to half of its former population, Todi lived a brief period of splendour under bishop Angelo Cesi, who rebuilt several edifices or added new ones, like the Cesia Fountain that still bears his name.
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