Città di Castello

Today's name is the last of a line. The Romans called it Tifernum Tiberinum, to distinguish it from the other Tifernum on the Metauro, and its most illustrious patron was Pliny the Younger, who had his family estates here and had a temple built. Destroyed by Totila and rebuilt by bishop Florido, it struck the Lombards as a fortunate stronghold and they called it Castrum Felicitatis, the castle of happiness; from that, shortened, Civitas Castelli and at last Città di Castello. In the upper Tiber valley it is the northernmost comune of Umbria, and by area the twentieth in Italy — with an exclave in the Marche where nobody lives.

The Vitelli, condottieri and patrons, put up five palaces here and called in Raphael and Luca Signorelli; then Cesare Borgia had Vitellozzo Vitelli killed in the Senigallia conspiracy. Of that Renaissance, though, the town has kept little: the Marriage of the Virgin that Raphael painted in 1504 for San Francesco was carried off by the French in 1798 and is in the Brera — a copy stands in its place — while his Crucifixion and Parmigianino's Vision of St Jerome are in the National Gallery in London. The twentieth century made amends: Alberto Burri, born here in 1915, left his town everything, and his Ex Seccatoi del Tabacco, monumental black sheds, are a place of pilgrimage for curators from half the world. In November the white truffle calls; Sansepolcro, Piero della Francesca's town, is a quarter of an hour away.