Clitunno

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The Clitunno, known in ancient times as the Clitumnus, is a river in Umbria, Italy. It starts from a spring near Campello sul Clitunno, close to the old Via Flaminia. The spring impressed writers like Pliny the Younger, who described baths, villas, and inscriptions praising the spring and its deity. Virgil also mentions it in his Georgics, admiring the milk-white herds that drank from its sacred waters. The river was visited by emperors Caligula and Honorius and was celebrated by poets Byron and Carducci. In the 19th century willows were planted and pollution was controlled; today it is a paid tourist site.

The Clitunno generally flows north through the east Umbrian plain, past the Temple of Clitumnus (later a church) and the towns of Pissignano, Cannaiola, and Trevi, before joining the Timia near Bevagna. The Timia is a tributary of the Topino, which leads to the Tiber and then the Tyrrhenian Sea. The river usually moves slowly but can flood suddenly, and it was tamed with levees in the 19th century.