Explore Arezzo

The Basilica of San Francesco is a Franciscan Gothic church in Arezzo, begun around 1290; its stone façade was never faced. The Bacci Chapel in the chancel holds Piero della Francesca's fresco cycle of the Legend of the True Cross, painted between 1452 and 1466, and a large painted crucifix hangs at the chancel entrance.

Santa Maria della Pieve is a Romanesque church on Corso Italia in Arezzo, documented from 1008 and rebuilt in the 12th and 13th centuries. Its façade has three tiers of loggias with columns that all differ, its bell tower of 1330 has forty two-light windows, and a polyptych by Pietro Lorenzetti of 1320 stands in the chancel.

Arezzo Cathedral, dedicated to Saints Peter and Donatus, stands at the top of the old town on Piazza del Duomo. Building began in 1277 with a bequest from Pope Gregory X and ended in 1511; the neo-Gothic facade by Dante Viviani dates from 1900 to 1914. Inside are stained-glass windows by Guillaume de Marcillat and the 14th-century marble arch of Saint Donatus at the high altar.

Casa Vasari is the house in Arezzo that the painter, architect and biographer Giorgio Vasari bought in 1541 and decorated himself with frescoes celebrating art, artists and his own career. The Italian state bought it in 1911; it is now a museum of his painted rooms with a garden, and it holds the Vasari archive.

San Domenico is a Dominican Gothic church in Arezzo, begun in 1275 and completed in the 14th century, with a plain stone façade topped by an open bell gable. Inside hangs a painted crucifix by Cimabue from the 1260s, and the walls carry frescoes by Spinello Aretino and his son Parri di Spinello.