Cortona was one of the great Etruscan lucumonies, and the MAEC museum proves it with the sixteen-flame bronze chandelier and the "melon" tombs of the plain; but the blow to the heart is Fra Angelico's Annunciation in the Diocesan museum, painted while the friar lived here. Saint Margaret watches from her hilltop sanctuary.
Frances Mayes's "Under the Tuscan Sun" — and the film that followed — made it a beloved goal of Americans, who feel at home here. The stones of Via Janelli, among Italy's oldest medieval houses, and the sunsets over the Valdichiana do the rest.
Near Cortona
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
