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Cortona Tuscany seen from the air.

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One of a series of films produced by Alessandro Sorbello http://www.alessandrosorbello.com and featuring original music by Jaider http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4O7STJFGxA
Film taken from the air in the same location as Under A Tuscan Sun Cortona is a small but fascinating city in the province of Arezzo, Tuscany, central Italy, situated on a commanding hill, and overlooking Lake Trasimeno. Its cyclopean walls, still in great part preserved, are said to be 3000 y
ears old. It was one of the twelve cities of Etruria and in its vicinity many ruins and Etruscan tombs maybe seen. Cortona took part in all the wars against Rome until 310 B.C. when Fabius Rullianus defeated the Etruscans and took Perugia. Perugia, with other cities including Cortona, then made peac
e with Rome. Later Cortona was destroyed by the Lombards but was soon rebuilt. In the fourteenth century it was governed by the Casali and afterwards became part of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. Many famous men were born or lived in Cortona: Brother Elias (Elia Coppi), the famous companion of St. Fran
cis of Assisi, and later Vicar-General of the Franciscan Order; Cardinals Egidio Boni and Silvio Passerini; the painter Luca Signorelli; the architect and painter Pietro Berrettini (Pietro da Cortona). St. Margaret of Cortona (1248-97) was born at Laviano (Alviano) in the Diocese of Chiusi, and beca
me the mistress of a nobleman of the vicinity. On discovering his body after he had met a violent death, she repented and, after a public penance, retired to Cortona, where she took the habit of a Tertiary of St. Francis and devoted her life to works of penance and charity. There still exist in Co
rtona religious works due to her zeal. Leo X permitted her veneration at Cortona, and Urban VIII extended the privilege to the Franciscan Order. Benedict XIII canonized her in 1728. Her body rests in a beautiful sarcophagus in the church dedicated to her at Cortona. It is not known whether Cortona w
as an episcopal see previous to its destruction by the Lombards. From that time until 1325 it belonged to the Diocese of Arezzo. In that year, at the request of Guglielmo Casali, John XXII raised Cortona to episcopal rank, as a reward for the fidelity of its Guelph populace, Arezzo remaining Ghibell
ine. The first bishop was Rainerio Ubertini. Other bishops were Luca Grazio, who was a distinguished member of the Council of Florence (1438); Matteo Concini (1560) and Gerolamo Gaddi (1562) were present at the Council of Trent. The cathedral and the other churches of Cortona possess numerous works
of art, especially paintings of the school of Luca Signorelli and of Fra Angelico. The Etruscan antiquity of the city is not in doubt, but its foundation is lost in the mists of many legends which were already told in classical times. These were later reworked especially in the late Renaissance pe
riod under Cosimo I de' Medici. They were concerned with reconciling of two opposed purposes: (a) The Florentine ruling class wanted to portray the huge domain of Tuscany as ancient Etruria, and to trace all its most famous towns right back to the time immediately following Noah's Flood. They wante
d official recognition for them as a Grand Duchy, to obtain the title of Grand Duke for Cosimo. This was granted by Pope Pius V in 1570. (b) The Cortonese ruling class wanted to portray the city as the oldest and most noble in Tuscany, and to suggest that its local government arose from the Etrusca
n lucumonia and had been perpetuated in the medieval Comune. Hence they could argue for a share in the citizen government, after their rivals, the Florentine Lords, had taken control of the town. The 17th-century Guide of Giacomo Lauro, reworked from writings of the notorious forger Annio of Viterb
o (1432-1502), which draws on many ancient writers, tells that 108 years after the Flood Noah, navigating from the mouth of the Tiber across the Paglia entered the Val di Chiana and, liking this place better than anywhere else in Italy because it was so fertile, stopped and dwelt there for thirty ye
ars. Among his descendants a son named Crano came to the hilltop and, liking the high position, the fine countryside and the calm air, built the city of Cortona on it in the year 273 after the Flood. Stefano (Greek historian, c.AD 539-545) calls this the third city of Italy constructed after the Fl
ood, and the original capital of the Turreni. Noah, approving of Crano's work, named him Corito, i.e. King, and heir to the Kingdom. Crano, taking this title, built a palace tower atop the hill. Its remains are still at Torremozza. Crano's kingdom was called Turrenia because Noah's descendants buil
t cities with high towers. That was the original name of Tuscany, and its inhabitants were called Turreni. But being descended from Noah, who was saved from the waters (Latin, "ab imbribus"), some were also called Imbri or (commonly) Umbri. a View of Piazza della Repubblica.Dardanus, a descendant o
f Cranus, after local disputes fled to Samothrace, then to Phrygia and at last to Lydia, and founded there the city of Troy. From Troy some descendants of Dardano, still Greek, returned to live in Turrenia (i.e. Toscana), and were the Etruscans. Among them were Ulysses and Pythagoras. Aristotle (4t
h century BC) and his contemporary Theopompus report older traditions that Ulysses emigrated to Italy after his return to Ithaca. According to them he came to Etruria, to a city which Theopompus calls Curtonaia, and they locate his tomb nearby. In Etruria (where he is esteemed) Ulysses was called Na
nos, 'the Wanderer', and his tomb was said to be at "Monte Perge" near modern Pergo. According to Virgil (Aeneid III and VII) Aeneas, a descendant of Dardano, fled the destruction of Troy and came to Latium (Lazio) where his descendants founded Rome. Hence Cortona had given rise first to Troy, and t
hen to Rome. The story that Pythagoras lived at Cortona, died and was buried there (the "Tanella di Pitagora") was a confusion between Cortona and Crotona in southern Italy. Main sights The prevailing character of Cortona's architecture is medieval with steep narrow streets situated on a hillside
(altitude 600 metres), embracing a view of the whole of the Valdichiana. From the Piazza Garibaldi is a fine prospect of Lago Trasimeno, scene of Hannibal's ambush of the Roman army in 217 BC (Battle of Lake Trasimene). Parts of the Etruscan city wall can still be seen today as the basis of the pre
sent wall. Inside the Palazzo Casali is the Museo dell'Accademia Etrusca that displays items from Etruscan, Roman, and Egyptian civilizations, as well as art and artefacts from the Medieval and Renaissance eras. The distinguished Etruscan Academy Museum had its foundation in 1727 with the collectio
ns and library of Onofrio Baldelli. Among its most famous ancient artefacts is the bronze lampedario or Etruscan hanging lamp, found at Fratta near Cortona in 1840 and then acquired by the Academy for the large sum of 1600 Florentine scudi. Its iconography includes (under the 18 burners) alternating
figures of Silenus playing panpipes or double flutes, and of sirens or harpies. Within zones representing waves, dolphins and fiercer sea-creatures is a gorgon-like face with protruding tongue. Between each burner is a modelled horned head of Achelous. It is supposed that the lampedario derived fro
m some important north Etruscan religious shrine of around the second half of the fourth century BC. A later (2nd century BC) inscription shows it was rededicated for votive purposes (tinscvil) by the Musni family at that time (P. Bruschetti et al., Il Museo dell'Accademia Etrusca di Cortona, Catalo
go (2nd Ediz., Calosci, Cortona 1996). The Museum contains several other important Etruscan bronzes. Etruscan chamber-tombs nearby include the 'Tanella di Pitagora' (halfway up the hill from Camucia), two at the foot of the hillside at Il Sodo, and a complex in Camucia. Il Sodo I contains pitch-roo
fed chambers of slab construction with an inscription, and can be visited. Il Sodo II contained a stone stepped platform with carved sphinxes devouring warriors, the originals in Arezzo Museum (1998). (see La Cortona dei Principes, ed P.Z. Grassi, Cortona 1992) The church of Santa Maria delle Grazi
e by Francesco di Giorgio Martini.The town's chief artistic treasures are two panels by Fra Angelico in the Diocesan Museum, an Annunciation and a Madonna and Child with Saints. A third surviving work by the same artist is the fresco above the entrance to the church of San Domenico, likewise painted
during his stay at Cortona in 1436. The Diocesan Museum houses also a group of work by Giuseppe Maria Crespi, known as Lo Spagnuolo, called Ecstasy of St. Margaret. The Academy Museum includes the very well-known painting Maternità of 1916 by the Cortonese artist Gino Severini. There are also exa
mples of the works of Pietro Berrettini (1596-1669), called Pietro da Cortona, pupil of Andrea Commodi. Also noteworthy is the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, designed by Francesco di Giorgio Martini. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortona

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