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The Lombard history of Spoleto is best recorded architecturally in the church of Sant'Eufemia. Here, in the middle of Umbria, stands a twelfth-century church that serves as a text-book example of Northern Lombard design principles.
The interior reveals the archeology of Spoleto's Romanesque sources, with paleo-christian columns, piers and capitals interwoven between abstract semi-columns supporting taut, perfectly composed lower and gallery arches and vaulting that echo in miniature the nave and side aisles of Sant'Ambrogio in Milan.
The highlight of the church is the architecture of the nave, with its two-story side aisles and tall apses that stretch the full height of the church. The arched galleries were used to segregate women from the men, who worshiped in the main nave below. This configuration is the only one of its kind to survive in Umbria.
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