THE PONTIFICAL STATE
THE DECADENCE

During the 16th Century citizens was living inside the town's walls, and Città di Castello didn't undergo important changes, even if it increased its Counter-Reformation urban image and the baroque taste spread.
The Pontifical politics damaged the town and it gradually became closed to external commercial exchange and excluded from the main communication routes, and also, as border land attracted charges by custom duties and taxes.
This background was also marked by the continuous pernicious pestilence with inevitable following famine such as in 1631.
The Capuchin Nun Veronica Giuliani was the most important historical person of this century. She lived an exceptional ascetic experience, stigmatised and sanctified when she was still alive.
The many arts and Craft Corporations were no longer able to carry on the economy of the town, whilst the cultural dark was substituted by the prospering of many Academies, the most important was the Illuminati Academy that built the Theatre in 1666 and was the fourth important organisation in Italy.