Our roots
The taste of time, the strength of a communityOlive oil production in Panicale and throughout the Trasimeno area boasts ancient origins dating back to the Etruscans. Our own story begins with an act of courage. The year was 1949: Italy was emerging wounded from the war, and those who worked the land—often land they did not own—struggled simply to survive. Private olive mills, held by large landowners (latifondisti), imposed unsustainable terms on local farming families and smallholders.
A group of farmers resolved to join forces and reshape their destiny. Thus, a cooperative was founded—La Panicalese—giving birth to Umbria’s first cooperative olive oil mill: an act of social redemption that transformed the local molino dell’olio (oil mill) into the beacon of a shared future for an entire community. In 1952, the cooperative became Oleificio Cooperativo Il Progresso, which ever since has brought together over four hundred families and farming smallholders across the Trasimeno basin, united by the conviction that together, they could achieve far more.
Today, PaneOlio safeguards the deep roots of those choices, innovating without losing its bond with the land and the values of cooperation and solidarity: a place for gathering and dialogue, a custodian of memory, and a stronghold for the future.
These ancient Umbrian lands, steeped in history, bestow unrepeatable organoleptic qualities upon the olives thanks to their unique microclimate. All of Umbria—home to millennial monumental olive trees such as the Sant’Emiliano olive tree in Trevi or the Raia in Macciano, living emblems of unbroken continuity between past and present—holds a prominent position on the national stage. With approximately seven million trees spanning 30,000 hectares and over 200 olive mills, the region is distinguished by an extraordinary richness of olive cultivars.
Across our olive groves on Isola Polvese (Lake Trasimeno) alone—spanning approximately 50 hectares, largely planted by the Olivetan monks during the 15th century and designated as protected monumental groves—collaborative research with the CNR (National Research Council) has identified more than 30 varieties found nowhere else in the world, which we safeguard with utmost care.
It is from our past that we also drew inspiration for one of our signature creations: “SAN SEBASTIANO 100% Italian Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil.” Below is the story behind its name.
In 2020, the Umbria Region, together with local municipalities, launched the “Grand Tour Trasimeno” project with the goal of creating a widespread cultural itinerary linking museums, villages, and anthropological traditions across nine municipalities in the Lake Trasimeno district. The project’s name evokes the Grand Tours of the 18th and 19th centuries, when wealthy members of the European aristocracy undertook a long journey to complete their cultural education. Their primary destination was Italy, where they visited its cities and landscapes, discovering its rich cultural heritage. The main “attractions” were the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and above all, the “picturesque”—understood as the harmonious balance of the human-shaped landscape.
Regarding Panicale, the “Grand Tour Trasimeno” highlights among its most significant artistic landmarks the Collegiate Church of San Michele Arcangelo—dedicated to the village’s patron saint and a fine example of Baroque architecture; the Church of San Sebastiano, home to two splendid frescoes; the 14th-century Palazzo del Podestà, seat of the Municipal Historical Archives and the town’s highest point; and the Cesare Caporali Theatre, which, with just 140 seats, stands as one of the most intimate historic theatres in Umbria.
A true jewel of the region, the Church of San Sebastiano houses two important frescoes: “The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian” (1505) by Pietro Vannucci, known as Perugino or the “Divine Painter,” one of the leading artists of the Italian Renaissance; and “The Madonna Enthroned with Musical Angels,” attributed to the young Raphael, a pupil of Perugino. The landscape of Lake Trasimeno and the panorama enjoyed from Panicale are reproduced almost like a photograph in the background of the fresco.
In 1505, to pay homage to the holy martyr Saint Sebastian—venerated as depulsor pestilentiae (averter of the pestilence) for having survived the ordeal of the arrows ordered by Roman Emperor Diocletian, which were likened to plague buboes—the inhabitants of Panicale commissioned the fresco from the preeminent Umbrian painter of the era, Pietro Vannucci, known as Il Perugino. The commission and the choice of theme for this monumental fresco were prompted by the sack of Panicale in 1503 at the hands of the troops of Duke Valentino (Cesare Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI), and the subsequent plague epidemic that devastated the local population.
Perugino signed the work on the central plinth, where his signature can still faintly be discerned: “P(etrus) DE CASTRO”. The date 1505 can also be read in Roman numerals (MDV) on the pillars of the classical portico. Two years later, on September 1, 1507, Perugino received the final payment of 11 florins for the “S. Sebastiani depicte dicte comunitati Castri Panicalis et hominibus ipsius” (Saint Sebastian painted for the said community of Castro Panicale and its people).
As a whole, the Martyrdom fresco is conceived as an abstract, harmonious composition built upon geometric clarity that reflects the formal compositional tenets of Perugino’s work in the Sistine Chapel, powerfully embodying the Renaissance reverence for classical antiquity. By contrast, the landscape depicted in the background is a faithful, realistic tribute to Panicale itself, portrayed as a magnificent natural terrace overlooking Lake Trasimeno.
In Handbook for Travellers in Central Italy (London, 1864), John Murray wrote:
“The figure of St. Sebastian is singularly beautiful, exquisite in colouring, and with the form and proportions of an Apollo. This great work will amply repay the inconvenience of leaving the high road.”