The Girifalco Fortress, an admirable example of military architecture, stands at the top of the Cortona hill, in a splendid position on an outcrop from where the gaze can sweep over the Val di Chiana and mounts Amiata and Cetona. Probably erected in ...

In historic Piazza del Duomo stands the most important church in Cortona which, consecrated to Santa Maria Assunta, rises, in Renaissance style, on the remains of an early-Christian church and on those, still visible today in the façade of a Romanesq...

Housed in the spacious rooms of the thirteenth-century Palazzo Casali, standing in the heart of the old town centre of Cortona , the Etruscan Academy Museum was set up around 1727 thanks to the bequest of the abbot Onofrio Baldelli. The museum, which...

Standing on the highest point of the Cortona hill, in a splendid position with a panoramic view, is the Basilica dedicated to Santa Margherita of Cortona. Founded - on the remains of a previous eleventh-century church, consecrated to St. Basil - in h...

Housed in the sixteenth-century religious complex of Gesù, made up of an ex-church - the nave of which contains a fine decorated barrel vault roof, painted in the sixteenth century by Michelangelo Leggi - and an oratory - adorned by a cycle of fresco...

The architectonic heritage of Cortona is remarkably interesting, indeed, surprising for the scenic aspect and aristocratic beauty of its old palazzos that dot the urban fabric, and testify to the town's illustrious past. Facing on to the Piazze della...

Outside the old town walls of Cortona, facing the square called largo Beato Angelico, rises the Church of S. Domenico, an admirable example of late-Gothic architecture. Built around 1438 together with the adjacent monastery, nowadays destroyed, the c...

At the top of a high basement, reached by a wide flight of steps, rises the Church of S. Francesco, where building began in 1245 by the Franciscan friar Elia Coppi of Cortona, on the remains of ancient Roman baths. The church preserves, despite the n...

On the old road leading from Porta Colonia out of the town of Cortona, isolated on a small upland plain in a splendid position with a panoramic view, stands the Church of Santa Maria Nuova, an interesting example of late-Renaissance architecture. Ere...

A few kilometres from the town of Cortona , standing among the trees of a gentle knoll, is the Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie al Calcinaio, one of the most important Renaissance churches in Italy. Erected between 1485 and 1513 in honour of the Vi...

A few kilometres from Cortona, in the heart of the green Valdichiana, stands the old Farneta abbey, a splendid example of Romanesque. Founded by Benedictine monks around the ninth-tenth century, the abbey, which flourished in the Middle Ages, after b...

Etruscan presence in the Cortona area is proven not only by the remains of the massive defensive walls, but also by some necropoli found outside the old town centre. The tombs dug out of the ground and then covered with mounds of earth and stones, th...