Arezzo is a city in Eastern Tuscany and one of the provincial capitals of the region. Located at the meeting point of four major valleys: the Valdarno, Casentino, the Val di Chiana and Valtiberina, Arezzo is surrounded by a territory which is divided into flatlands, low hilly areas and tiny villages.

The origins of Arezzo can be found even earlier than the Romans, in the pre-Etruscan period, when it was only a small settlement (although there is also evidence to suggest a stable population may have lived here as far back as  prehistoric times).

After the Romans came and left, Arezzo fell under the control of the Lombards and subsequently became the seat of the Episcopal See. In ten hundred, the city became a Free City, but soon fell to Florence, home of the Grand Duke of Tuscany and stayed that way until the Renaissance.

Not as famous as some of Tuscany’s bigger cities, Arezzo quietly and unassumingly guards some of the region’s most striking and important religious buildings including the breathtaking Cattedrale del San Donato, which was built in the beginning of 1200 following orders personally issued by Pope Innocent III at the tomb of San Donato.

While not commissioned by popes, Arezzo’s other sacred buildings are just as splendid and include the Basilica of San Francesco, which houses a cycle of frescoes titled “The Legend of the True Cross” by Piero della Francesca; the Chiesa della Santa Maria delle Grazie, a shrine built on an Etruscan-Roman temple; the Pieve di Santa Maria Assunta, which already existed in early Christian era and was restructured during 1100; the Chiesa di San Domenico, with its wooden crucifix by Cimabue; and finally the Abbey of the Holy Flora and Lucilla, a Gothic building dating back to the second half of the thirteenth century.

But if churches aren’t really your thing, Arezzo also boasts museums and monuments that celebrate the city’s cultural, military and political heritage.

For art lovers there’s the Teatro Petrarca, which, built in 1828, is the city’s biggest theatre.

For those who love the work behind architecture, there’s the Palazzo dei Ingenieri Civile, built around 1937.

For those who want to know more about Italy’s proud military history, there’s the striking sixteenth century example of defensive military art, the Italian barracks.

Finally for those who love the workings of society and politics, there’s the Palazzo delle Poste, dating back to 1885; the Palazzo del Governo, which dates back to the early 20th century; and finally the Palazzo della Provincia, which was erected in 1913.