HISPELLUM (mod. Spello, q.v.), an ancient town of Umbria, Italy, 3 m. N. of Fulginiae, on the road between it and Perusia, 1,030 ft. above sea-level. Augustus founded a colony there (Colonia Julia Hispellum) and extended its territory to the springs of the Clitumnus. It received the name of Flavia Constans by a rescript of the emperor Constantine, a copy of which on a marble tablet is still preserved at Spello. The gate by which the town is entered is ancient and has three portrait statues above it; a ruined amphitheatre and two other gates and a part of the city wall, built of rectangular blocks of local limestone, may still be seen; one of these gates, the Porta Venere, has two dodecagonal towers resembling those of the ancient Augusta Taurinorum (Turin) and is probably, like them, of the Augustan period.
(T. A.)