🏛️UNESCO in Tuscany

Montalcino

Province: Siena · 564 m

• 🍷Brunello di Montalcino DOCG

A 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.

Castiglione d'Orcia

Province: Siena · 540 m

A stone borgo at 540 meters in the UNESCO Val d'Orcia, first recorded in 714, with two fortresses guarding the road from Amiata to the Via Francigena.

San Gimignano

Province: Siena · 334 m

A walled hill town at 334 meters with 14 surviving medieval towers, UNESCO listed since 1990 and the home of Vernaccia.

San Quirico d'Orcia

Province: Siena · 409 m

A walled stop on the Via Francigena at 409 meters in the UNESCO Val d'Orcia, where a twelfth-century Collegiata, a Renaissance garden and the Bagno Vignoni thermal pool sit within fifteen kilometers of each other.

Pienza

Province: Siena · 491 m

The first Renaissance ideal city, built from 1459 by Bernardo Rossellino for Pope Pius II on the Val d'Orcia ridge.

Pisa

Province: Pisa · 4 m

Maritime republic on the Arno, twelve kilometers from the Ligurian Sea, with the leaning bell tower at the center of a single UNESCO-listed walled compound.

Carmignano

Province: Prato · 189 m

A Medici village at 189 meters on the Montalbano slopes, where Pontormo's Visitation hangs in the parish church and Etruscan tumuli sit below the Renaissance villas.

Montecatini-Terme

Province: Pistoia · 27 m

Eleven thermal springs in a Liberty-style park at the foot of the Apennines, one of the Great Spa Towns of Europe inscribed by UNESCO in 2021.

Radicofani

Province: Siena · 814 m

The Val d'Orcia's basalt watchtower — a 1,060-resident UNESCO-inscribed borgo at 814m on a volcanic basalt outcrop visible across half of southern Tuscany, with the spectacular Rocca di Radicofani (Ghino di Tacco's outlaw fortress, mentioned by Dante in Purgatorio + Boccaccio in the Decameron), the 16th-c Posta Medicea on the Via Francigena, and Bandiera Arancione + UNESCO + Via Francigena triple signal.

Seravezza

Province: Lucca · 100 m

The Versilia town at the foot of Monte Altissimo where Michelangelo opened the Pope's marble quarries and Cosimo I built his summer palace.

Cerreto Guidi

Province: Firenze · 123 m

The Medici hunting villa above the Padule di Fucecchio, where Cosimo I sent his court for the marshland game and Buontalenti built four ramps of stairs.

Barberino di Mugello

Province: Firenze · 272 m

The Mugello gateway at 272 meters where the Medici family kept its first country villas, with Michelozzo's Cafaggiolo and the artificial Lago di Bilancino below.