About the Town of Cortona

An hour and a half north of Rome by train, midway between the Adriatic and Ligurian Seas, Cortona is one of the most engaging of the Tuscan hill towns. Here, past and present blend together seamlessly - the ringing of cell phones as much a part of the sensory experience as the smell of ripened cheeses and smoke from wood-fired ovens. Outside, the pleasant bar-café, the famous Tuscan sun, much weakened today by a tight filigree of clouds, illuminates Piazza della Republica. The town's central square and a favorite gathering point, the piazza is the hub of a series of narrow streets on which pedestrians and vehicular traffic have a surprisingly easygoing coexistence. In one direction from the piazza, the town's ancient brick-and-stone buildings climb steeply to a Medici fortress. In the other, they crowd down the hillside, forming a cascade of well-weathered tile roofs. From vantage points overlooking these roofs can be seen the broad stretches of the picturesque valley know as the Val di Chiana.

Fifty-five years ago this pleasing landscape was not as peaceful as it is today. In the early summer of 1944, soldiers of the First Canadian Corps, fighting as part of the British Eighth Army, entered the valley and helped push the occupying German forces (Italy had then broken from the Axis Forces) north from the valley and the surrounding hills into the not-so-distant Apennines, where Hitler's army entrenched itself along a heavily fortified defensive front - the Gothic Line - that protected the underbelly of the Nazi heartland. Though that was more than five decades ago, the Cortonese have not forgotten the role Canadians played in their liberation. But then, half a century isn't long in a city where many of the buildings were occupied long before Columbus set foot on the soil of the New World and the name of one of the main thoroughfares - Via Dardano - is a reminder of Virgil's claim that Cortona was founded by Dardanus, son of Zeus and Electra and the mythical founder of Troy. (Modern historians believe that Cortona was originally a fortified Umbrian city that passed into the hands of the Etruscans between the eighth and seventh centuries BC. It was later granted Roman citizenship and, having bounced back and forth between political masters, was eventually sold to the Florentines by the King of Naples in 1411. Thereafter, it followed the fortunes of the Grand-duchy of Tuscany.)

Source: Rick Pilger, New Trail, Autumn 1999