In 2010 an exhibition dedicated entirely to the Dragons of the Tiber’s valley took place, dedicated to the presence of the dragon and the ruler in medieval iconography, in the sculptures of San Fortunato and the Cathedral of Todi and with the exhibition of some finds, such as the rib of the Dragon of Forello.
Speleologists tell of the exploration of Forello and its caves which have, in the collective memory, a direct relationship with these mythological presences.
Many tales and stories that revolve around the devil who turned into a Dragon.
First of all, the Grotta di S. Romana from which the demonic dragon slaughtered people, and then spoke of the stories about the Scoglio del Serpente and the fantastic Infernaccio.

The rib of the dragon

As per legend, it is kept in the Temple of S. Maria della Consolazione.
It dates back to the years 1457-1458 and has a “length of seven palms and seven ounces”: it is the gigantic bone of a prehistoric animal brought in vote by the faithful to Santa Maria della Consolazione, to which the Tuderti had recommended themselves to kill a winged monster that came out of the Gorges of Forello.
This remnant has been defined as a dragon’s rib, which has always been kept in the church as thanks by the soldiers of Todi to the Virgin for having defeated the terrible reptile coming from the Forello gorges. The winged monster was nothing more than the figurative symbol of the continuous struggle between good and evil. The remains were perhaps belonging to the group of Elephas Primigenius, of which an upper molar was also found in the lignite mines of Bastardo.

The dragon of San Silvestro

Going down the course you arrive at the Trivio di Santa Maria characterized by the presence of the Church of San Silvestro. The Church of San Silvestro is one of the oldest in Todi, built before the 11th century.
Inside it contains countless frescoes, one of which in particular represents Pope Sylvester subduing the Dragon. In fact, legend has it that the Pontiff defeated and killed a dragon, a symbol of evil, painted crouched at the saint’s feet, kept tied with a chain in an act of total submission.

The Regulus

The ruler or little king of snakes is the smallest but certainly the most feared.
It is a scaly reptile with the appearance of a rooster with a snake tail or a winged snake. It hatches from a rooster egg, hatched on a dung heap by a toad or frog. It kills with the gaze, with lethal breath or by consuming the unfortunate with only contact.
Legend has it that he lived along the Tiber in the Snake Rock, terrorizing the people of Todi. It is said that it was St. George who killed him outside the cave.

The Costola del Drago in Pieve di S. Crescenziano
Another testimony of Draghi in Umbria.
It is said that the brave soldier Crescenziano killed this monstrous serpent which suppressed the population with its pestilential breath. Today remains the source with sulphurous smells from which the dragon came out. In Pieve de Saddi there is the iron collar that tied St. Crescenziano and a gigantic broken rib of about 2 meters of the dragon he defeated.

The church of San Leonardo al Forello

The church stands on the top of the wall that overlooks the mirror of the artificial basin of Lake Corbara and only a slice of the side wall and the apse remain standing.
At its foot, a short distance away as the crow flies, stands the Eremo della Pasquarella while a little further upstream the town of Scoppieto made famous by the Romans who had placed one of the most famous ceramic factories of antiquity there.
The Romanesque building is almost overhanging the gorges that the Tiber river (today Corbara Lake) has dug over the millennia.
The church dedicated to San Leonardo was inside the castle of Forello and a tithe of 16 pounds was recorded as paying in the Catalog of Petti for the years 1399 and 1467; on the other hand, no trace of it is found in the Camaiani visit in 1574.
It still has a paving in stone slabs and shreds of wall, suggesting two rooms, one certainly dedicated to the nave of the place of worship and one for a dwelling or sacristy.
The environment surrounding the church is rather harsh and difficult, due to the narrow path into which the river is forced by the steep limestone walls of the mountains, called Gole del Forello, an attribution that is due to the narrow passage between the rocks.
The very inaccessible environment characterized by rocks, woods and caves scattered throughout the route have made legends and anecdotes related to demonic figures who found refuge in the local caves flourish in popular memory.
On this place, however, the secondary road network was linked, which wound through narrow mule tracks they covered the bank of the Tiber and connected lower Umbria to the Lazio plains and towards the capital, first along a Roman and then a medieval route, which, going up from the Gole del Forello, reached the town of Scoppieto; the very steep road in that stretch was called “Straccalasini” (or even the donkeys get tired walking along it).
Primitive traces of human presence are documented in the caves where the presence of Paleolithic settlements seems to have been confirmed.
Surely the current isolation of the church does not correspond to the situation that was present in ancient times, it had to watch over the wayfarers who crossed the very narrow valley where, according to the legends, infernal animals and demons took refuge, and sometimes even from a distance see the light of a church was a relief and a safety for pilgrims who sought shelter in the evening
The church therefore found moments of splendor in the medieval period when the Eremo della Pasquarella and the Forello castle were in vogue.