Rocca Maggiore

**A pink limestone from Monte Subasio behind the town — and almost everything is built of it.** ✅ **The material**: **a pale pink limestone** quarried from **Monte Subasio**, on whose flank Assisi sits — ⚠ **its colour coming from iron oxides** in the rock. ✅ **Why it unifies the town**: **almost the whole place is built of it** — **the basilicas, the houses, the walls, the fortress and the paving**; ⚠ **so nothing clashes**, **and Assisi looks like a single mass grown out of its mountain**. ✅ **Its effect on light is what matters**: **the pink stone changes colour through the day** — **pale grey in the morning**, **washed white at midday**, ⚠ **then pink and then reddish-orange at sunset** — **which is what makes sunset here exceptional**, **and not the view alone**. ✅ **At Santa Chiara** it is used with **white stone** in alternating bands — **a striped manner common in Umbria and Tuscany**. ⚠ **And earthquakes**: **this stone is beautiful but not the strongest** — ⚠ **the 1997 earthquake damaged many buildings** in the region; **strengthening work continues**, and you may see scaffolding.