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Tour of 7 UNESCO heritage sites in 7 Days: |
Florence Florence was built on the site of an Etruscan settlement and the later ancient Roman colony of Florentia (founded in 59 BC). This Tuscan city became a symbol of the Renaissance during the early Medici period (between the 15th and the 16th centuries), reaching extraordinary levels of economic and cultural development. The present historic centre covers 505 ha and is bounded by the remains of the city’s 14th-century walls. These walls are represented by surviving gates, towers, and the two Medici strongholds: that of Saint John the Baptist in the north, popularly known as “da Basso”, and the Fort of San Giorgio del Belvedere located amongst the hills of the south side. The Arno River runs east and west through the city and a series of bridges connects its two banks including Ponte Vecchio and Ponte Santa Trinita. Seven hundred years of cultural and artistic blooming are tangible today in the 14th-century Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, the Church of Santa Croce, the Palazzo Vecchio, the Uffizi gallery, and the Palazzo Pitti. The city’s history is further evident in the artistic works of great masters such as Giotto, Brunelleschi, Botticelli and Michelangelo. |
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Pienza Pienza, located on the crest of a hill overlooking the Val d'Orcia, 53 km south-east of Siena, was established in the medieval period as Corsignano. The town was renamed and redesigned in the late 15th century by Pope Pius II. Born in this Tuscan town, Enea Silvio Piccolomini became a leading humanist before being elected as Pope in 1458. Renaissance town-planning concepts were first put into practice when Pope Pius II enlisted the architect Bernardo Rossellino to transform his birthplace. Rossellino applied the principles of his mentor, Leon Battista Alberti, a humanist thinker and architect, author of the first architectural treatise of the Renaissance. The Pope was further influenced by German philosopher Cardinal Nicolà Cusano and the German Gothic tradition. This is evidenced in the interior of the Pienza Cathedral, typical of the late Gothic style of southern German churches while the exterior is pure Renaissance. The bell tower blends Gothic and Renaissance forms. The new vision of urban space was realized in the superb trapezoidal square known as Piazza Pio II. The construction of new major buildings around the square began in 1459 and included the cathedral as well as Piccolomini Palace, the Borgia Palace (or Episcopal Palace), the Presbytery, the Town Hall, and the Ammannati Palace. |
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Pisa Piazza del Duomo houses a group of monuments known throughout the world. Standing in a large green expanse, enclosed by the city walls, the former Ospedale della Misericordia and the Palazzo dell’Arcivescovato, the Piazza del Duomo at Pisa comprises one of the most renowned constructed landscapes in the world. The four masterpieces of medieval architecture – the cathedral, the baptistery, the bell tower (the 'Leaning Tower') and the cemetery – were erected between the 11th and 14th centuries within close proximity of each other, forming a unique cluster of monuments. A striking quality pervades the site, emanating from the interplay of marble and mosaics, the usual alliance of bare walls and arched galleries, triangular frontons and heavy cupolas with the whole effect heightened by the breath-taking slant of the bell tower. The square is remarkable since it contains works of art that bear witness to the creative spirit of the 14th century. Its monuments reflect such a decisive stage in the history of medieval architecture that they have become a reference point for studies related to the Pisan Romanesque style. The Camposanto and its cycle of frescoes, with particular typology and use, constitute an outstanding example for the history of Italian medieval painting of the 14th and 15th centuries. |
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San Gimignano The Historic Centre of San Gimignano sits on a height of land, dominating the surrounding landscape. During the Middle Ages, its location in Val d’Elsa, 56 km south of Florence, provided an important relay point for pilgrims travelling to or from Rome on the Via Francigena. The town became independent in 1199 and between the 11th and the 13th century the noble families and upper middle-class merchants who controlled the free town built many fortified tower houses (probably 72) as symbols of their wealth and power. The town grew around two principal squares: the triangular Piazza della Cisterna, ornamented with a lovely central well, and the Piazza Duomo, dating from the late 13th century with its more intricate layout containing the majority of public and private monuments. After 1353, the town went into a period of decline due to waves of famine and plague that caused a drastic decrease in population. Within a hundred years, the town was downgraded to the level of the other lands under the Florentine control. This status, however, prevented the town from the urban renewal that transformed many Italian historical towns after the Middle Ages. While only 14 of the original tower houses have survived, San Gimignano has retained its feudal atmosphere and appearance, embellished with several notable palaces during the 12th and 14th century. The town also has several masterpieces of Italian art dating to the 14th and 15th centuries. These are found in the cathedral as well as in other prominent religious and public buildings. |
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Siena The Historic Centre of Siena is the embodiment of a medieval city. Historically, its inhabitants pursued their competition with the neighbouring cities of Florence and Pisa right into the area of urban planning. Throughout the centuries, the city has preserved its Gothic appearance acquired between the 12th and 15th centuries. During this period, the work of Duccio, the Lorenzetti brothers and Simone Martini influenced the course of Italian and, more broadly, European art. The whole city of Siena was devised as a work of art that blends into the surrounding landscape. This Tuscan city developed on three hills connected by three major streets forming a Y-shape and intersecting in a valley that became the Piazza del Campo. The seven-kilometre long fortified wall still surrounds the 170-hectare site. Protected gates were doubled at strategic points, such as the Porta Camollia on the road to Florence. To the west, the walls embrace the Fort of Santa Barbara that was rebuilt by the Medici in 1560 and finished in 1580. Inside the walls, Tower Houses, palaces, churches and other religious structures survive. Also of note are the city’s fountains that continue to be fed by an extensive system of original tunnels. Siena’s distinctive Gothic style is illustrated by the quintessential Sienese arch, introduced to the city from the East during the Crusades. The arch dominated later building styles including the Renaissance era. Even when buildings underwent major renovations in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries (such as the Town Hall, the Chigi-Saracini Palace, and the Marsili Palace respectively), Gothic elements had preference. |
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Medici's Tuscan Villas Twelve villas and two gardens spread across the Tuscan landscape make up this site which bears testimony to the influence the Medici family exerted over modern European culture through its patronage of the arts. Built between the 15th and 17th centuries, they represent an innovative system of construction in harmony with nature and dedicated to leisure, the arts and knowledge. The villas embody an innovative form and function, a new type of princely residence that differed from both the farms owned by rich Florentines of the period and from the military might of baronial castles. The Medici villas form the first example of the connection between architecture, gardens, and the environment and became an enduring reference for princely residences throughout Italy and Europe. Their gardens and integration into the natural environment helped develop the appreciation of landscape characteristic Humanism and the Renaissance. |
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Val d'Orcia The landscape of Val d’Orcia is part of the agricultural hinterland of Siena, redrawn and developed when it was integrated in the territory of the city-state in the 14th and 15th centuries to reflect an idealized model of good governance and to create an aesthetically pleasing picture. The landscape’s distinctive aesthetics, flat chalk plains out of which rise almost conical hills with fortified settlements on top, inspired many artists. Their images have come to exemplify the beauty of well-managed Renaissance agricultural landscapes. The inscription covers: an agrarian and pastoral landscape reflecting innovative land-management systems; towns and villages; farmhouses; and the Roman Via Francigena and its associated abbeys, inns, shrines, bridges, etc. |
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