Anywhere Italy

Recognitions

10 towns holding the most recognitions at once

Comuni carrying the most simultaneous designations in the catalogue, from Borghi più belli to Cittaslow to Bandiera Blu. 10 towns shown, most recognized first.

Italian town certifications form an ecosystem: beauty lists, slow-living charters, product designations, environmental flags. Most towns hold none. These hold the most in the catalogue, several at once.

Stacked recognitions usually mean a town that works at being itself: the wine consortium, the intact centro, the clean beach, all maintained by the same few thousand people.

  1. 1.Norcia8 recognitionsPerugia · UmbriaBirthplace of San Benedetto at 604 meters on a Sibillini plateau, leveled by the 2016 earthquake and rebuilt stone by stone.
  2. 2.Matera8 recognitionsMatera · BasilicataCave dwellings carved into limestone since the Paleolithic, called the shame of Italy in the 1950s and made European Capital of Culture in 2019.
  3. 3.San Casciano dei Bagni7 recognitionsSiena · TuscanyA hilltop borgo at 582 meters above 42 hot springs that produced the largest Etruscan bronze hoard of the last fifty years.
  4. 4.MontalcinoMontalcino7 recognitionsSiena · TuscanyA walled hill town at 564 meters above the Val d'Orcia, the last fortress to hold out for the Sienese Republic and the birthplace of Brunello.
  5. 5.Trevi7 recognitionsPerugia · UmbriaA walled town at 412 meters above the Spoleto valley, ringed by 200,000 olive trees that make it the Umbrian capital of olive oil.

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  1. 6.Massa Marittima7 recognitionsGrosseto · TuscanyA medieval mining town at 380 meters in the Colline Metallifere, free commune from 1255 to 1337, whose cathedral holds the relics of San Cerbone.
  2. 7.Scanno6 recognitionsL'Aquila · AbruzzoA 1,057-meter Sagittario valley village photographed by Cartier-Bresson and Giacomelli, where women in black still walk the same alleys as the 1957 series.
  3. 8.Arquà Petrarca6 recognitionsPadova · VenetoThe Euganean Hills village where Francesco Petrarca spent his last four years and died in 1374, renamed in his honor in 1868.
  4. 9.Nemi6 recognitionsRoma · LazioThe smallest comune in the Castelli Romani, perched at 521 meters above a volcanic crater lake the Romans called the mirror of Diana.
  5. 10.SuveretoSuvereto6 recognitionsLivorno · TuscanyA stone borgo at 127 meters above the Val di Cornia, named for the cork oaks of its forests and ruled from the Rocca Aldobrandesca since 973.

We write about towns like these every Sunday, one town a week, with the photo, the food, the festa. Free, from Pietrasanta.

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From elsewhere in Italy

Five more towns to discover