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| Arezzo: Historical Background | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Chief town of a vast district in the mid-east of Tuscany, Arezzo is easily reachable from Florence (Km. 80, approx. 50 miles), Siena (Km. 65, approx. 40 miles), Perugia (Km. 80, approx. 50 miles), and Rome (Km. 205, approx. 130 miles).. |
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| Arezzo
lies on a hillside's slight slope, surrounded by a wide valley where four
natural basins meet: the higher Valdarno in the west and the Valdichiana
in the south-west, two wide river valleys shaped by the two homonimous rivers
(Arno and Chiana). In the north, the Casentino, a narrow basin among the
mountains, flows into this valley while in the east it is separated from
the higher part of the Valtiberina by a small mountain range. Arezzo is
- in a straight line - 86 Km (approx. 54 miles) from the Adriatic Sea and
109 Km (approx. 68 miles) from the Tyrrhenian Sea. The longest river - Arno
- bends in the north-west of the town (7 Km, approx. 4,5 miles) and, immediately
after that, it joins up with the main stream of the Chiana into the artificial
basin of the Penna.
Because of its continental climate, there are no remarkable sudden changes in temperature. During the summer, the town - due to its favourable position (296 metres above sea-level) - is never touched by a great heat. Only during the coldest months you can see the snow falling on the surrounding mountain ranges of the Pratomagno and the Catenaia Alp. |
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| The growth and the development of Arezzo have been eased by the meeting, in its district, of some of the most important communication routes so that, from the ancient times, it has been considered as a crucial junction for the trade, connecting the North to the South, the East to the West. Today the most remarkable business is the jewellery art: some of the most important Italian Jewellery Companies headquarters are based in Arezzo, glamorous symbols of the "Made in Italy" all over the world. In fact, "Oro Arezzo", a well-known international exhibition and trade fair of gold and silver art, jewellery, jems and corals, takes place in Arezzo, every year in the month of April at the "Centro Affari e Convegni". |
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The first evidences of the existence of the Etruscan "Arretum" date back to twenty-five centuries ago, and precisely to the end of the VIth Century, as proved by the Poggio del Sole's necropolis' remains, namely the two celebrated bronze statues of Chimera and Minerva (kept at the Archaeological Museum of Florence) and the vases and the ceramics at the Archaeological Museum of Arezzo. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Every
stage of Arezzo's history is proved by valuable finds. During the Roman
Empire, arts and economy spread, thanks to Gaius Cilnius Maecenas (68
b. C. - 8 b. C.), who became a minister and an adviser of the Emperor
Octavian Augustus. The free "Comune of Arezzo" was founded during
the Middle Ages - about 1000 a. C. - and it ruled all over the present
size of its district. The University foundation (one of the earliest in
Italy), and the flourishing of the poetry (Guittone, about 1294 a. C.)
and of the arts (Margarito d'Arezzo, about 1236 a. C. - about 1293 a.
C.), who inspired the Florentine (Cimabue) and Sienese masters (Pietro
Lorenzetti), date back to this period. Francesco Petrarca, son of a Florentine
political refugee, was born in 1304 in Arezzo.
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| As a consequence of the defeat of the Arezzo's Ghibellines in Campaldino (1289) Florence and Siena took possession of their vast estates. The rising of the bishop Guido Tarlati (1312) belonging to the powerful family of Pietramala, seemed to start off - in the first years of the XIIth century - an intense period of growth and welfare, but a long and troubled political crisis (1327 - 1384) caused the fall of Arezzo under the Florentine rule, and the loss of its political, cultural and artistic independence. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| In the XVth century a lot of Florentine artists deeply marked Arezzo's art and architecture: Bernardo Rossellino (Fraternita Palace), Benedetto Da Maiano (Portico of Santa Maria delle Grazie), Giuliano Da Maiano (cloister of Badia), Parri da Spinello and Bartolomeo della Gatta (plan of the Church of the SS. Annunziata). | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| In 1453, Piero Della Francesca was entrusted with the task of frescoing the choir of St. Francis' Church: this was the beginning of the famous cycle of the "Leggenda della Vera Croce" (The Legend of the True Cross), that was to be one of the greatest art masterpieces of all the times, now entirely restored and viewable in all its extraordinary greatness and richness. In the same period, the humanist Leonardo Bruni (about 1374 - 1444), author of the "Historia Fiorentina" worked in Arezzo, as well as the caustic poet Pietro l'Aretino (1492 - 1556) and the brothers Benedetto, Francesco e Bernardo Accolti, fine literate and scholars. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The XVIthe century in Arezzo is strongly linked to Giorgio Vasari (1511 - 1574), architect (Palazzo delle Logge), painter, art historian ("Le vite dei più eccellenti architetti, pittori et scultori italiani" - The lives of the most excellent Italian architects, painters and sculptors) and powerful arbiter of the Tuscan arts and letters. Vasari invited to Arezzo Guglielmo da Marcillat from France (painter of the glass windows of the SS. Annunziata's Cathedral and Church) and Bartolomeo Ammannati (the church of St. Maria in Gradi). | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| At that time, Arezzo suffered a terrible upheaval: the grand duke Cosimo de' Medici ordered the destruction of the Palazzo del Comune and of the old Duomo Vecchio, to give way to an urban plan of fortification and rearrangement ended around 1560, with the building of the Old Fortress and the erection of the new city walls that, 4200 metres long (approx. 2,5 miles), surround an area of about 100 hectares (approx. 2,5 acres). Then, in the higher part of the town were built a lot of palaces and residences for the nobility as, for example, the Palazzo Fossombroni, Guillichini and Barbolani di Montauto and the imposing Vasari's Palazzo della Loggia in Piazza Grande. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The XVIIth and the XVIIIth centuries were marked by a terrible slackness - if not by a total decay: the population decreased and the urban setting did not change for years and years. For what it concerns the cultural aspect, arts and letters were neglected until the XIXth Century and until Neoclassicism gave way to the well-known painter Pietro Benvenuti (1769-1844). | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Immediately after 1860 (the unity of Italy), Arezzo regained its political, economical and administrative independence, as well as its characteristic spirit of enterprise in trading and commerce. A lot of important manufacturing industries and the major banks in this area were founded. The urban growth and the realization of new infrastructures lasted through the whole XXth century, with important urban renewal and preservation plans especially for what it concerned the historical heritage and the old town centre. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Arezzo is the wonderful set of "Life is beautiful", the enchanting and touching movie by Roberto Benigni, winner of 3 Oscar Awards: Best Foreign Language Film, Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role, Best Soundtrack (with the music of Nicola Piovani).. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Every
first weekend of each month in the old town centre streets of Arezzo one
of the richest antiques fair in Italy takes place.
Every second Sunday
of June and every first Sunday of September the "Giostra del Saracino"
takes place: it is an ancient Middle Ages tournament, revived in 1931. |
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The picture represents the "Ritratto di Uomini illustri" (Portrait of Illustrious Men) by Alfonso De Carolis (1874-1928), and it is now kept in the Palace of the Provincia of Arezzo. |
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| From left: Gaius Cilnius Maecenas (see also Caius Cilnius Maecenas and the "Gens Cilnia"); Guglielmo Ubertini (a ghibelline bishop who died in Campaldino); Guittone d'Arezzo (one of the most important poet of the "Stil Novo"); Francesco Petrarca (poet and humanist); Masaccio (painter); Poggio Bracciolini (humanist and latinist); Cristoforo Landini (humanist); Luca Signorelli (painter); Guido Monaco (the benedictine monk who invented the tetragram); Margarito (o Margaritone, architect, sculptor and painter); Santa Margherita; Spinello (painter); Leonardo Bruni (humanist); Piero della Francesca (painter); Mino da Fiesole (sculptor). In the middle: Michelangelo Buonarroti (sculptor, painter, architect, poet). Right: Andrea Sansovino (sculptor and architect); Giorgio Vasari (architect, sculptor, historian, painter); Pietro l'Aretino (man of letters and poet); Andrea Cesalpino (philosopher, physician, botanist, he studied in particular the circulation of blood); Alessandro del Borro (man-at-arms); Bernardo Tanucci (statesman); Pietro Benvenuti (neoclassicist painter); Bernardo Dovizi (cardinal and diplomat under Leone X); Giammaria Ciocchi del Monte (then Pope Giulio III); Benedetto Varchi (historian and man of letters), Pietro Berrettini (architect and painter), Francesco Redi (physician, naturalist and man of letters); Vittorio Fossombroni (politician). | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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See
also: |
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