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Cortona
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Travelling south from Arezzo you enter the
Valdichiana
, reclaimed swampland that is now prosperous cattle country, producing the much-prized Florentine
bistecca
. From the valley floor a long road winds up through terraces of vines and olives to the hill-town of
CORTONA
, 20km south of Arezzo, from whose heights you can see Lago Trasimeno. A scattering of Etruscan tombs aside, the steep streets are dominated by medieval architecture that claws its way around a knife-edge ridge, with barely a patch of level ground anywhere. Traffic is restricted, which accentuates the sense of hilltop isolation - although the quantity of summer visitors can diminish the atmosphere. Even without its art treasures, Cortona would be a good place to rest up, with pleasant hotels, excellent restaurants, and an amazing view at night of the villages of southern Tuscany glittering in the distance.
The main arrival point for buses and cars is Piazza Garibaldi , from where the only level street in town, Via Nazionale, connects to Piazza della Repubblica , which is overlooked by the grandstand staircase of the squat Palazzo del Comune. Just behind is Piazza Signorelli , named after Luca Signorelli (1441-1523), Cortona's most famous son, and site of the Museo dell'Accademia Etrusca (Tues-Sun: April-Sept 10am-7pm; Oct-March 10am-5pm; L8000/€4.13; www.accademia-etrusca.net ), where an enormous hall contains cabinets of prized Etruscan stuff, surrounded by second-rate paintings. The major exhibit - honoured with its own bijou temple - is an Etruscan bronze lamp from the fifth century BC, its circumference decorated with alternating male and female squatting figures. Elsewhere there are ranks of Etruscan figurines, jewellery and masses of unlabelled domestic odds and ends. The painter Gino Severini (1883-1966), another native of Cortona and an acolyte of the Futurist firebrand Filippo Marinetti, gets a room to himself. With pre-booking (tel 0575.630.415), museum experts can guide you around a handful of Etruscan tombs outside town. Piazza Signorelli links with Piazza Duomo, where the Duomo (daily 8am-noon & 3-6.30pm) sits hard up against the city walls, overlooking the precipice. It was raised on the ruins of a pagan temple, but progressive rebuilding work has muffled the original Renaissance construction. It remains a cool and tranquil refuge from the sometimes wearing commercialism of the town centre. To the right of the altar is an illuminated vitrine holding a reliquary said to contain a fragment of the True Cross. Across the little piazza, a couple of churches have been knocked together to form the Museo Diocesano (Tues-Sun: April-Sept 9.30am-1pm & 3.30-7pm; Oct-March 10am-1pm & 3-5pm; L8000/€4.13), with a small collection of Renaissance art plus a fine Roman sarcophagus, carved with fighting centaurs. Climbing from Piazza della Repubblica on Via Santucci and then Via Berrettini brings you into the upper town. A further work by Signorelli can be found in the unassuming church of San Nicolo , reached by veering right across Piazza della Pescaia at the far end of Via Berettini, then heading up the stepped Via San Nicolo. Ring the bell on the left-hand side wall, and the caretaker will take you to Signorelli's double-sided altarpiece, revealed by a neat hydraulic system that swivels the picture away from the wall. Signorelli's fresco of the Madonna, Child and Saints on the left is reminiscent of his more famous work in Orvieto.
From Piazza della Pescaia, a steep path leads up to
Santa Margherita
(daily 7.30am-noon & 3-7pm), resting place of St Margaret of Cortona, the town's patron saint. The daughter of a local farmer, she spent her long years of widowhood helping the poor and sick of Cortona, founding a hospital that stood close to the site of this church. Her tomb, with marble angels lifting the lid of her sarcophagus, was created in the mid-fourteenth century, and is now mounted on the wall to the left of the chancel, while her remains are on display in a glass coffin directly behind the chancel. Other useful information
for tourists (each section contains more specific sub-sections): |
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Italy,
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