Cortona (Tuscany): what to see in 1 day


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What to see in Cortona in one day, itinerary including the main monuments and places of interest, including the Duomo, the Diocesan Museum and the Basilica of Santa Margherita.


Tourist information

A town in Tuscany in the province of Arezzo, Cortona stands at 494 meters above sea level on a buttress sloping down from Monte Sant’Egidio towards the Val di Chiana.

Cortona was originally one of the most powerful lucumonies among the Confederate Etruscan cities, surrounded by walls over 3 km long, as evidenced by the tombs with rich funerary furnishings and various materials found from excavations.


In 89 BC Cortona received Roman citizenship, and from this era it retains its urban layout, with the forum located where the current Piazza Signorelli and Piazza della Repubblica are located.

From the devastations suffered following the collapse of the Roman Empire, the city only recovered in the late Middle Ages, when in the thirteenth century it became a free municipality, with its own currency, and often in struggle with nearby Arezzo.

In 1325 Cortona became diocese and was ruled by the Lordship of the Casali for almost a century, then it became part of the Florentine domains and followed the fate of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany.


Today the splendid village of Cortona has buildings dating back to the medieval and Renaissance periods, with traces of the Etruscan and Roman eras.

The following buildings overlook the Signorelli and Repubblica squares which make up the city center:

- Palazzo Comunale, dating back to the thirteenth century and remodeled several times


- Palazzo del Capitano del Popolo, known as Palazzo Cardinale Passerini, renovated in the sixteenth century

- Signorelli Theater, from the 19th century

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- Palazzo Casali, dating back to the thirteenth century but with the facade redone in the eighteenth century, which houses inside the interesting Museum of the Etruscan Academy and the city of Cortona, called MAEC, in addition to the library and the historical Archive.

The Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta is the Cathedral of Cortona, built around the year 1000 in Romanesque style on the foundations of a pagan temple.

The current building is the result of a Renaissance-style renovation that took place between the end of the fifteenth century and the beginning of the sixteenth century.

What see

In Piazza Duomo there is also the Diocesan Museum of the Chapter of Cortona, located in the former Church of the Gesù.

Among the masterpieces that the Museum holds are distinguished:

- the famous altarpiece by Fra Angelico painted for the church of San Domenico

- the Assumption of the Virgin by Bartolomeo della Gatta, originally in the Benedictine church of the Convent called delle Contesse


- the fascinating Lamentation over the dead Christ by Luca Signorelli from the Church of Santa Margherita.

Near the Church of San Domenico, a road called Passeggiata in Piano, about 2 kilometers long, offers a wide and beautiful panorama over the entire Val di Chiana, Lake Trasimeno and Mount Amiata.

At the highest point of Cortona stands the Medici Fortress or Girifalco, a splendid example of military architecture, built in the second half of the sixteenth century, at the behest of Grand Duke Cosimo I dei Medici,

Outside the historic center there is the church of Santa Maria Nuova, a work from the mid-sixteenth century started by the architect Cristofanello and completed by Giorgio Vasari, and at 550 meters above sea level, the Hermitage Le Celle, famous for having hosted several times St. Francis, who according to tradition wrote his spiritual testament here.

The presence of San Francesco also influenced Santa Margherita, a Franciscan tertiary and patroness of Cortona.

Margherita was accepted and adopted by the city of Cortona and lived the last years of her life in a room of the small church dedicated to San Basilio, which Margherita restored, in the upper part of the hill.


After Margherita's death, near the church, a larger church was built according to Giovanni Pisano's design, and in 1330 his body was moved there, which is still kept in the Church, rebuilt in the nineteenth century and dedicated to the Saint, known like Basilica of Santa Margherita.

Inside the city some parts of walls and traces of the Etruscan period are still visible, while outside, on the plain, Etruscan mounds of the archaic age can be visited, one located in Camucia and two in the locality of Sodo, known as Meloni di Sodo , while in Maestà del Sasso, between Camucia and Cortona, there is another Etruscan necropolis with the famous Tanella di Pitagora.

In Ossaia the remains of the Roman villa of the late republican-imperial age are visible.

Among the illustrious personalities who were born or lived in Cortona over time, Luca Signorelli, a great Renaissance painter, and Fra Beato Angelico, who lived for a few years in the Convent of San Domenico, stand out.

Pietro Berrettini, known as Cortona, a famous artist of the Baroque period, was also born in Cortona.

ONE DAY IN CORTONA - TUSCANY - ❤️Cortona il più bel borgo della Toscana (March 2024)


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