traveldk.com

A visionary early Renaissance master whose paintings have an ethereal spirituality, his well-modelled figures endowed with great humanity. His complex compositions also show his early mastery of perspective.

The Pinacoteca boasts a comprehensive collection of Sienese painting (though the masterpieces of the school are housed elsewhere). Among the earlier gems, seek out various 14th-century Madonnas by Simone Martini and Pietro Lorenzetti. Compare Beccafumi’s cartoons (full-sized preparatory sketches on cartone , or “large paper”) for the Duomo’s floor panels and his Mannerist Christ Descending into Limbo to rival Sodoma’s High Renaissance works.

Added Tuscan humanism to Umbrian Renaissance style.

Tuscany’s favourite daytrip offers more than just a leaning tower. The gorgeous collection of Romanesque buildings called the “Field of Miracles” ranks among Tuscany’s Top 10 sights (see Campo dei Miracoli, Pisa).

Beside the Pisan-Romanesque exterior, only a few elements, such as Cimabue’s apse mosaic of 1302, survived a 1595 fire. However, the late Renaissance/early Baroque refurbishment was stylish, and local legend holds the swinging of the nave’s large bronze lamp inspired Galileo’s Law of Pendulums. (see San Gimignano)

Beautiful assemblage of Pisan-Romanesque buildings using grey-and-white marble bands, blind arcades, and stacked loggias (see Campo dei Miracoli, Pisa).

Jewel of a Gothic church: all pointy arches, spires and statuettes.

An ancient Roman town of metal workers – the industry’s thin daggers, which evolved into handguns, were called pistole after the city. It is an artistic crossroads where the striking Romanesque stripes in San Giovanni Fuoricivitas and the Duomo (see Pistoia’s Duomo) meet the Florentine Renaissance glazed terracottas festooning the Ospedale del Ceppo. Gothic art comes in the form of colourful 1372 frescoes covering the Cappella del Tau, and a Giovanni Pisano carved pulpit (1298–1301) in the church of Sant’Andrea.

Andrea della Robbia’s enamelled terracotta entrance accents the Romanesque exterior’s zebra stripes. The Altar of St Jacobo (1287–1456) contains some of Italy’s finest silversmithing. Ask the custodian to show you Verrocchio’s Madonna di Piazza (1485).

In the heart of the Etruscan Maremma, surrounded by valleys full of ancient tombs, Pitigliano is built upon an outcrop of tufa rock. In fact, it is difficult to tell where the cliff sides end – pockmarked as they are with cellar windows – and the walls of the houses and castle begin.