AREZZO
circa 250 km dalla Versilia

L'antica Strabo considered ancient Arezzo, built on the hills overlooking the valley of the Clanis, to be the Etruscan city that lay furthest inland. Thanks to its position, it formed a natural centre for the farming population scattered over the fertile Chiana Valley and possibly originally grew up as an outpost of Chiusi, during the major period of Etruscan expansion to the north (6th century B.C.). Although there is little archaeological data on the town, there are ample traces of many of the important sanctuaries that once contained famous "votive offerings", among them the famous bronze Chimera, today in the Archaeological Museum in Florence; these buildings were all decorated with extremely beautiful terracottas, carried out by a well known local school of pottery (Piazza San Jacopo, Via Roma, etc.). Surrounded by walls of great blocks of stone, the large necropolis of Poggio Sole, founded in the 6th century B.C. and in use until Roman times, shared the urban area.

The Chapel 
The work on a fresco cycle in the Cappella Maggiore of the church San Francesco had already begun in 1452 when when Piero della Francesca visited the city. The Florentine painter Bicci di Lorenzo was working in the chapel, he died in 1452, leaving the decoration of the chapel barely begun. Piero probably began to work right after Bicci's death, covering in a few years the walls of the Gothic chapel with the most modern and most advanced - in terms of perspective - frescoes that the Italian 15th century could have created.