What is Cortona known for?

One of the twelve cities of the Etruscan League, with two kilometers of fourth-century BC walls still standing. Second-century BC bronze plaque in the MAEC, the longest known inscription in the Etruscan language. Frances Mayes's 1996 memoir of buying a villa outside town that turned Cortona into one of the most visited hill towns in Tuscany.

Cortona is a comune in the province of Arezzo, Tuscany region of Italy, about 49 kilometers from Perugia.

Tuscany · Arezzo

Cortona

An Etruscan lucumoniawith two kilometers of walls older than Rome, looking down on the Val di Chiana and Lake Trasimeno.

49 km / 30 mi

Nearest hub (Perugia)

21,133

Population

Apr–Oct

Best time to visit

Recognised as

Why come

Cortona standson the southern flank of the Val di Chiana, looking across to Lake Trasimeno. The Etruscan name Curtun is fixed on the Tabula Cortonensis, a second-century BC bronze plaque now in the MAEC, the longest known inscription in the language. In the fourth century BC, Cortona was one of the twelve lucumoniae of the Etruscan League. Two kilometers of Etruscan walls still ring the city, the foundation under everything Roman and medieval that came after. In 1211, Francis of Assisi asked the bishop for a place to retreat in prayer; Le Celle, three kilometers below the town, was the result and remains a working Franciscan convent. Santa Margherita, the city's patron, lived and died here in 1297 and her basilica caps the ridge. The painters Luca Signorelli and Pietro da Cortona were born inside the walls. Frances Mayes published Under the Tuscan Sun in 1996. The town has not been quiet since.

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Gallery

9 photos · scroll →

We’ve tried

Restaurants, walks, swims. Things we tried in Cortona.

Erbe, the bitter boiled greens that make a kilo of rare beef sit like a virtue.
Erbe | The Greens on the Side
The bistecca alla fiorentina, and why everyone who tries to improve it ruins it.
The Fiorentina Steak | Leave it alone

Known for

Mura etrusche
Two kilometers of fourth-century BC walls still ringing the city, the foundation of every later layer of building.
MAEC
Museum of the Etruscan Academy in Palazzo Casali, holding the Tabula Cortonensis and the lampadario di Cortona.
Museo Diocesano
Collection in the former Chiesa del Gesù with Beato Angelico's Annunciation of 1430 and works by Luca Signorelli.
Basilica di Santa Margherita
Fourteenth-century basilica above the town, holding the body of Cortona's patron saint who died here in 1297.
Eremo Le Celle
Franciscan convent founded in 1211 at the request of Francis of Assisi, still inhabited by friars in cells on both sides of a narrow valley.
Fortezza del Girifalco
Medicean fortress at the top of the hill, built on Etruscan foundations, used for exhibitions and views over the Val di Chiana.
Piazza della Repubblica
Civic square at the city's center, dominated by the Palazzo Comunale and its open stone stairs.

When to visit

Best months · Apr–Oct

Best
Hot or crowded
Quiet
Mostly closed

April through June brings green hills, cool evenings and the longest hours in the Diocesano without a queue. September and October are the dry, gold months, light coming in low across Lake Trasimeno and the olive harvest running until November. July and August are the difficult months. The bus tours start at nine, the centro storico fills, and Piazza della Repubblica stays warm past midnight. The Cortona On The Move photography festival in July and August fills the palazzi and the empty churches with exhibitions. November through March is quiet. Many restaurants close on Mondays and Tuesdays and some hotels close entirely. The Sagra della Bistecca in mid-August feeds five thousand under the trees of the Parterre.