Italy, Cortona

About Cortona

Cortona is a town and comune in the province of Arezzo, in Tuscany, Italy.

History

Cortona was founded by the Etruscans, who called it Curtun in their language. The city was also important during Roman times.

Main sights

The prevailing character of Cortona’s architecture is medieval with steep narrow streets situated on a hillside (altitude 600 metres), embracing a view of the whole of the Valdichiana. From the Piazza Garibaldi is a fine prospect of Lago Trasimeno, scene of Hannibal's ambush of the Roman army in 217 BC (Battle of Lake Trasimene).

Parts of the Etruscan city wall can still be seen today as the basis of the present wall. Inside the Palazzo Pretorio is the Museo dell'Accademia Etrusca that displays items from Etruscan, Roman, and Egyptian civilizations, as well as art and artefacts from the Medieval and Renaissance eras.

Etruscan chamber-tombs nearby include the 'Tanella di Pitagora' (halfway up the hill from Camucia), two at the foot of the hillside at Il Sodo, and a complex in Camucia. Il Sodo I contains pitch-roofed chambers of slab construction with an inscription, and can be visited. Il Sodo II contained a stone stepped platform with carved sphinxes devouring warriors, the originals in Arezzo Museum (1998). (see La Cortona dei Principes, ed P.Z. Grassi, Cortona 1992)

The church of Santa Maria delle Grazie by Francesco di Giorgio Martini.The town's chief artistic treasures are two panels by Fra Angelico in the Diocesan Museum, an Annunciation and a Madonna and Child with Saints. A third surviving work by the same artist is the fresco above the entrance to the church of San Domenico, likewise painted during his stay at Cortona in 1436  The Diocesan Museum houses also a group of work by Giuseppe Maria Crespi, known as Lo Spagnuolo, called Ecstasy of St. Margaret.

Also noteworthy is the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, designed by Francesco di Giorgio Martini.

Culture

Cortona is famous as the base for some scenes in Roberto Benigni's film Life is Beautiful, in Italian La vita è bella. It is also famous as the setting for the 2004 film Under the Tuscan Sun whose author Frances Mayes maintains a home in Cortona.

In 2003, a live concert by André Rieu and his Johann Strauss Orchestra in the Piazza Della Repubblica was filmed and later broadcast in the United States on the PBS television network. Now entering its 4th year, the Tuscan Sun Festival, is held each year in August.