How Greccio was built and evolved over time

Greccio was built as a fortress on a ridge, and the stone came from directly beneath it.

The medieval settlement grew from a curtis — a self-sufficient estate managed by a lord — laid out on an esplanade, today's square, between two limestone outcrops. Beneath those outcrops the pietrisco was quarried: the crushed stone needed to build roads across the Rieti plain, which was marshy following the reclamation begun by Curius Dentatus. The stone was accumulated on the esplanade itself and then carted down into the plain.

Fortification followed consolidation. The first certain notices date to the tenth and eleventh centuries, when the fragmentary possessions of the Abbey of Farfa were reunited and the curtis were incastellate — turned into castles.

What that produced is legible in the remains: Greccio became a fortified medieval castle, surrounded by walls and protected by six fortified towers.

And it did not survive intact. After fierce struggles with neighbouring towns, it was destroyed by the soldiery of Frederick II in 1242.

The sanctuary is the other kind of building here — founded by Francis on the spur, and reached by climbing rather than by approach.