The scaglia rossa, a pink pelagic limestone of mid-Cretaceous to middle Eocene age in the autochthonous, or parautochthonous, Umbrian Apennines offers an opportunity to evaluate paleomagnetically the rotational history of the Italian peninsula. Over 350 samples from 37 sites in this unit were collected during three field seasons in 1973--1974. Weak natural remanent magnetizations (6¿10-8 to 8¿10-6 G) had an initial soft component that could be removed by thermal demagnetization to 250¿-350≡C or by alternating field (af) demagnetization fields less than 100 Oe. The magnetic mineralogy is not simple. Where both magnetite and hematite are present, thermal demagnetization showed that the hematite magnetization is in the same direction as that of the magnetite, which indicates that hematization may have taken place shortly after deposition. AF treatment in both 100 and 200 Oe was used to clean each sample. Samples distributed geographically over the scaglia rossa depositional basin clearly showed the effect of a later rotation. The mean remanent vector for the formation is D=317¿, I=44¿, α95=6¿. Seventeen sites were sampled in the classic section at Gubbio, where paleontologic ages are well established. The inclinations vary by only a few degrees and are slightly low based on the present latitude of the sites, although they agree well with expected inclinations from a plate tectonics reconstruction. The declinations appear to show that the Italian peninsula was rotating during part of the 50 m.y. represented by the formation. The most probable interpretation shows a 45¿ counterclockwise rotation in the Campanian-Maestrichtian and a further 25¿ counterclockwise rotation after the middle Eocene. The pattern of magnetic reversals agrees well with the Cretaceous magnetic polarity time scale.