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Home > Travel Italy > Italy Destinations > Cortona
Cortona
Italy, officially the Italian Republic or Repubblica Italiana, is a Southern European country comprising of the Po River valley, the Italian Peninsula and the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. It is shaped like a boot and for this reason Italians commonly call it lo Stivale, the boot or, due to its prevalent peninsular geographical nature, la Penisola, the Peninsula.
Cortona is one of Italy’s most popular destinations, and is well known for the quantity of cultural related attractions and monuments that the city has embraced. It is a city and commune in the province of Arezzo, in Tuscany. Initially known as Curtun, the city owes its origin to a nucleus inhabited by the Etruscans.
In spite of the intense urbanization that is undergoing in Cortona, the city with its Etruscan origins is rich in art and history. The popular character of Cortona’s architecture is medieval with steep narrow streets situated on a hillside at an altitude of 600 meters and provides splendid panoramas to every point of the compass, embracing the whole of the Valdichiana. The Museo Diocesano is home to a superb collection of paintings, that includes Annunciation and Madonna and Saints by Fra Angelico, and also a group of work by Giuseppe Maria Crespi known as Lo Spagnuolo called Ecstasy of St. Margaret.
Cortona serves both as a tourist centre and a dormitory city in Italy. It is famous as the base for some scenes in Roberto Benigni's film life is beautiful, in Italian La vita e bella. It is also famous as the setting for the 2004 film under the Tuscan Sun. The Art Department of the University of Georgia maintains a study abroad program in Cortona as does the University of Alberta.
Presently, Cortona experiences a sharp social, economic and population growth derivative of the strategic position of the locality and the high level of well-being and quality of life that is enjoyed with respect to other places of Italy. This fact has consolidated along with other adjacent municipalities, as a great alternative for residence.
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