Designation
Città d'Arte
14 towns across 9 regions
Campania2
Benevento
Province: Benevento · 130 m
Sannio capital at the Calore-Sabato confluence, with a 114 AD Trajan arch and a Lombard rotunda on the UNESCO list.
Caserta
Province: Caserta · 68 m
Italy's answer to Versailles, built by the Bourbons on the Campanian plain with 1,200 rooms and a three-kilometer water axis.
Emilia-Romagna2
Parma
Province: Parma · 57 m
A 57-meter Po-plain capital on the Via Emilia, where Correggio painted the Duomo dome and Parmigiano ages in vaults across the province.
Ravenna
Province: Ravenna · 4 m
A 4-meter coastal capital of three successive empires, with eight UNESCO mosaic monuments from the fifth and sixth centuries.
Lombardy2
Bergamo
Province: Bergamo · 249 m
A two-city Lombard capital where a Venetian walled hilltown sits 85 meters above its modern twin on the plain, 45 kilometers northeast of Milan.
Mantova
Province: Mantova · 19 m
A Gonzaga capital at 19 meters, encircled on three sides by lakes the Mincio formed in the twelfth century, UNESCO-listed together with Sabbioneta since 2008.
Sicily2
Noto
Province: Siracusa · 152 m
The capital of Sicilian Baroque, rebuilt entirely in golden limestone after 1693.
Siracusa
Province: Siracusa · 17 m
Ortigia island, wrapped in honey-coloured Baroque stone, sits at the heart of the city Cicero called the most beautiful in the world, on the eastern Sicilian coast south of Catania.
Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol1
Tuscany2
- ✷ We've been
Pisa
Province: Pisa · 4 m
Maritime republic on the Arno, twelve kilometers from the Ligurian Sea, with the leaning bell tower at the center of a single UNESCO-listed walled compound.
- ✷ We've been
Siena
Province: Siena · 322 m
The medieval rival of Florence at 322 meters on three hills, with a shell-shaped piazza where seventeen contrade race bareback horses twice a year.
From elsewhere in Italy
Five more towns to discover
Biccari
Province: Foggia
A Subappennino Dauno borgo at 450 meters under Monte Cornacchia, the highest peak in Puglia at 1,151 meters, with a Byzantine tower at its core.
Sirolo
Province: Ancona
A clifftop borgo at 125 meters, above the Due Sorelle sea stacks of the Adriatic.
Penne
Province: Pescara
The brick city at 438 meters between the Tavo and Fino, ancient capital of the Vestini, rebuilt after Allied bombing and awarded the Silver Medal of Civic Merit.
Palazzolo Acreide
Province: Siracusa
An 8,000-resident hilltop town on the Iblei plateau at 670m, rebuilt entirely in late Baroque after the 1693 earthquake and founded over the Greek Akrai colony in 664 BC, with a Greek theatre and a cluster of rock carvings unlike anything else nearby.
Verucchio
Province: Rimini
A spur over the lower Marecchia valley, cradle of the Villanovan civilization and birthplace of the Malatesta lordship of Romagna.