Cortona

Cortona stands on a hill above the Val di Chiana. An important Etruscan city, it retained imposing ancient walls and tombs in the surrounding countryside. Among the Etruscan remains is the Tabula Cortonensis, a bronze sheet bearing a long inscription in their language. Its commanding position overlooked the routes and settlements between the Tuscan hills and Lake Trasimene.

After the fall of Rome, the Goths occupied and damaged the town. Cortona became a Ghibelline commune with its own coinage in the thirteenth century. From 1325 the Ranieri-Casali family ruled the town, until King Ladislaus of Naples conquered it in 1409. Two years later it was sold to the Medici and came within Florence's orbit. When the senior Medici line ended in 1737, Cortona passed with Tuscany to the House of Lorraine.