© Edimedia di F. Filippi e C. Sas.

Situated in a defensive position on a rise at the confluence of the valleys of the Casentino, the Arno and the Chiana, Arezzo still today evokes in many of its aspects the austere profile of the city with turreted houses heaped together at the foot of the cathedral, which Piero della Francesca reproduced as the image of Jerusalem in his sublime work, The Legend of the True Cross. The mediaeval town-plan has preserved its harmony intact, enclosed within the 14th-century walls and interspersed by admirable examples of large Romanesque and Gothic buildings.
An Etruscan town of primary importance, capable of producing masterpieces such as the bronze Chimera, then a rich and powerful Roman city, in the Middle Ages it was the proud Ghibelline adversary of Guelph Florence, to which it had to become subject in 1384. A dazzling hotbed of artists in the 15th century, Arezzo was the birthplace of Vasari at the beginning of the 16th century, the century in which it saw its architectural layout undergo substantial alterations as a result of the establishment of the Medici, who strengthened its defensive systems by demolishing many of the old public and private buildings.