Cittaslow
Cittaslow in Tuscany
11 towns
Tuscany holds 11 Cittaslow sites inside our catalogue. They are spread over 9 provinces; the most are in Arezzo (2) and Grosseto (2).
The three most recognized in our catalogue are Massa Marittima, Suvereto, and Capalbio. 8 more towns carry the mark alongside them.
The towns
Massa Marittima
Province: Grosseto · 380 m
A medieval mining town at 380 meters, free commune from 1225 to 1337, whose cathedral holds the relics of San Cerbone.
- Written about. No. 40.
Suvereto
Province: Livorno · 127 m
A stone borgo at 127 meters above the Val di Cornia, named for the cork oaks of its forests and first recorded in 973, under a twelfth-century Aldobrandeschi fortress.
- Written about. No. 47.
Capalbio
Province: Grosseto · 217 m
A walled hilltop borgo at 217 meters in the southern Maremma, donated to the Abbey of Tre Fontane by Charlemagne.
- Written about. No. 31.
Castelnuovo Berardenga
Province: Siena · 351 m
A commune of 351 meters, the last castle Siena built against Florence, in 1366.
- Written about. No. 11.
Abetone Cutigliano
Province: Pistoia · 1,388 m
The Apennine ski pass at 1,388 meters where the Granduca's two stone pyramids of 1778 mark the old Tuscan-Modenese border.
Anghiari
Province: Arezzo · 430 m
A walled medieval town at 430 meters over the upper Tiber valley, where Florence beat Milan in 1440 and Leonardo started the fresco he never finished.
- Written about. No. 1.
Barga
Province: Lucca · 410 m
A medieval hilltop town at 410 meters in the Serchio valley, where Giovanni Pascoli wrote his last poems and the August festival serves fish and chips.
- Written about. No. 32.
Greve in Chianti
Province: Firenze · 236 m
The market town on the Greve river, with a triangular piazza arcaded since the sixteenth century.
Mulazzo
Province: Massa-Carrara · 351 m
A Malaspina fief in the Lunigiana hills where Dante stayed in 1306, with a frazione of booksellers who walked their wares across Italy.
- Written about. No. 23.
San Miniato
Province: Pisa · 150 m
The hilltop town between Pisa and Florence that produces a quarter of Tuscany's white truffles and once held the imperial seat of Otto I.
Cortona
Province: Arezzo · 494 m
An Etruscan lucumonia at 494 meters, with two kilometers of walls older than Rome.
From elsewhere in Italy
Five more towns
Portovenere
Province: La Spezia
A Genoese fortress guards the western mouth of the Gulf of Poets, above the rock where a Roman temple to Venus once stood.
Bogliasco
Province: Genova
A fishing village on the Riviera di Levante just east of Genoa, built around a 13th-century stone bridge over the Bogliasco torrent and a tight grid of pastel-coloured houses opening onto a pebble cove.
Pianella
Province: Pescara
A Cittaslow hill town at 236 meters between the Tavo and Pescara rivers, anchor of the Aprutino oil triangle and home of the dritta olive.
Irsina
Province: Matera
A 548-meter Bradano-valley hill town, called Montepeloso until 1895, whose cathedral holds a Renaissance rarity.
Roccamorice
Province: Pescara
A village at 520 meters in the Majella foothills, gateway to the rock-cut hermitages carved into the surrounding limestone.