Narni, some 50 miles north of Rome, was until recently just one of many pretty mediaeval hill-towns dotted around Umbria.
But the recent release of The Chronicles of Narnia, the Disney film based on a 1950 children's book by CS Lewis, has given the town and its picturesque cobbled streets fresh appeal.
Despite having little in common with Narnia, a land inhabited by dwarfs, speaking animals and a witch, Narni is making the most of a possible link with the magical land described in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.
The mayor's office is busy working out 'Narnia' guided tours, a Narnia carnival is planned for the spring and shop windows in the town are full of displays inspired by the new film.
"We're hoping our link with CS Lewis's world can be the start of something new and positive for Narni," said Giuseppe Fortunati, a local author who has written a book exploring the connections between the real and imaginary places.
"The film has already got a lot of people interested in the town and fans are starting to visit, in order to see the place that Narnia is based on," he added.
The $150-million Hollywood blockbuster, which came out in Italy on December 21, was one of the three most seen films
at the nation's cinemas over the New Year. Narni's administrators appear convinced that their town, which dates back to at least 299 BC and which now has a population of 20,000, was the inspiration for Lewis's creation.
"The first certain link is the name. Our town was called Narnia in Roman times," noted Narni councillor Anna Laura Bobbi.
Rumour has it that Lewis, a widely read Oxford professor, named his fictitious kingdom after the ancient Roman town he read about while studying Latin authors. Some reports even say an atlas, in which Narni had been circled, was found in his rooms after his death.
The town is mentioned in the writings of Tacitus, Livy and Pliny the Elder. Pliny the Younger sent a letter to his mother-in-law saying how nice the baths in her Narnia villa were.
As far as anyone knows, Lewis never actually went to Narni so the connection probably stops with the name. Nevertheless, councillor Bobbi listed a few of Narni's landmarks, such as an old Roman bridge and a Neolithic stone table, which could be seen as true connections between the hill-top town and Lewis's books.
"In Narni we also have the San Iago hermitage and the monastery of San Cassiano, which are both extremely atmospheric," she added. The weakness of the link hasn't stopped Italian newspapers and magazines doing features on the town, complete with pictures of wardrobes and lamp-posts.
These two items mark the gateway from the ordinary world into Narnia and can both be found in the real town of Narni. Local carpenters are reportedly busy making wardrobes in the hope of selling them to the CS Lewis fans on pilgrimages.
Lions are harder to find and the only ones available are made of stone.
But as afficionados point out, there was actually a stone lion in the story, as well as the magnificent one called Aslan who was the rightful ruler of Narnia.
