The 7 UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Tuscany

The 7 UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Tuscany | Val d’Orcia, Tuscany

The 7 UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Tuscany are The historic Center of Florence [since 1982], Piazza dei Miracoli in Pisa [since 1987], San Gimignano Historical Center [since 1990], the Historic Centre of Siena [since 1995], Pienza [since 1996], the Val d'Orcia [since 2004] and the Villas and Medici gardens in Tuscany [since 2013].

Val d’Orcia, Tuscany. The Orcia River between Sant’Angelo in Colle, Castelnuovo dell‘Abate and Castel del Piano on the border between the Province of Siena (left) and the Province of Grosseto (right)[3]
Val d'Orcia [since 2004]
The landscape of Val d’Orcia is part of the agricultural hinterland of Siena, redrawn and developed when it was integrated in the territory of the city-state in the 14th and 15th centuries to reflect an idealized model of good governance and to create an aesthetically pleasing picture. The landscape’s distinctive aesthetics, flat chalk plains out of which rise almost conical hills with fortified settlements on top, inspired many artists. Their images have come to exemplify the beauty of well-managed Renaissance agricultural landscapes. The inscription covers: an agrarian and pastoral landscape reflecting innovative land-management systems; towns and villages; farmhouses; and the Roman Via Francigena and its associated abbeys, inns, shrines, bridges, etc.[2]

Val d'Orcia	Cypress trees between San Quirico d'Orcia and Montalcino	San Quirico d'Orcia, Cappella della Madonna di Vitaleta

Mappa Val d'Orcia

Justification for Inscription Criterion (iv): The Val d’Orcia is an exceptional reflection of the way the landscape was re-written in Renaissance times to reflect the ideals of good governance and to create an aesthetically pleasing pictures. Criterion (vi): The landscape of the Val d’Orcia was celebrated by painters from the Siennese School, which flourished during the Renaissance. Images of the Val d’Orcia, and particularly depictions of landscapes where people are depicted as living in harmony with nature, have come to be seen as icons of the Renaissance and have profoundly influenced the development of landscape thinking.

Panorama San Quirico d'Orcia	Montalcino	Walking in the Val d'Orcia \| Itineraries \| Percorsi di Trekking

Pienza, Palazzo Piccolomini and the Duomo	Bagno Vignoni, Piazza dei Sorgenti	San Quirico d'Orcia, Cappella della Madonna di Vitaleta
CRITERIA USEFUL LINKS Official website of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Italy \| whc.unesco.org Traveling in Tuscany \| Complete list of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Tuscany
Other Unesco World Heritage Sites in Tuscany

The historic Center of Florence	San Gimignano	Piazza del Duomo, Pisa

Historical center of Siena	The historic Center of Pienza	Medici Villa's and gardens
Podere Santa Pia is a beautiful, stately stone farmhouse that blends the best of Tuscan charm with all the beauty and comfort of refined Italian taste. This unique holiday house, set a stunning location surrounded by nature, can host up to eleven guests. The house is surrounded by a lovely wild garden, tall cypress trees line the property and hidden in a nearby corner is the large swimming pool overlooking the rolling hills of the Tuscan Maremma. Traveling in Tuscany \| Holiday homes in southern Tuscany \| Podere Santa Pia

Podere Santa Pia, with a unique private swimming pool, celebrare il dolce far niente	Reflections on the pool: Tuscan designs for swimming	Visia da Podere Santa Pia, fino al mare e Montecristo



A beautiful early evening by the pool, in the resplendent Tuscan sun, time takes on a languid quality
[1] Photo by Antonio Cinotti, published under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) license. [2] Source: UNESCO World Heritage Centre \| whc.unesco.org \| Description is available under license CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0 [3] Photo by LigaDue, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.