Sansepolcro

Sansepolcro grew as a commune around a monastery on the upper Tiber, first recorded in 1012. In the thirteenth century it passed between regional rulers, including the Tarlati of Arezzo, before coming under papal control.

Pope Urban V granted the town to the Malatesta family in 1367. Florence took control in the fifteenth century, an era when its victory over Milan at nearby Anghiari in 1440 secured Florentine dominance in central Italy; Pope Leo X later raised Sansepolcro to the rank of a city.