In the heart of central Italy, there is a valley which was the cradle of Etruscan civilization. It was the easiest point of the peninsula to cross, despite being a swampy area, dangerous, unhealthy and unpopulated for centuries. Today it is a beautiful valley, and quite industrious, famous for the things it produces but also for its thermal waters, known and utilized since the time of the Etruscans.
Chiusi was the ancient capital of the valley, the Etruscan Lucumonia, and a Roman city. It was mentioned by Dante as the symbol of the decadence of the area, devastated by malaria, which succeeded the Barbarians. Montepulciano was the noble center, and even today it is the valley's center of art and culture. Its easy accessibility by road is reason enough to take advantage of what the area has to offer, whether it be the wine, such as Nobile di Montepulciano and Valdichiana Bianco, D.O.C., or the thermal waters of its lakes, Chiusi and Montepulciano, or, above all, the thermal waters of its hot springs, Chianciano, Sant'Albino, and San Casciano Bagni.

MONTEPULCIANO
Like almost all Medieval cities, it is situated atop a hill that dominates large spaces, and from here it is even possible to see Monti delle Marche and nearby Lake Trasimeno. It was a typical Medieval settlement, and it wrote its own history with the factional choices it made between Florence and Siena. It chose Florence, and as a consequence, it became the aristocratic center of the valley in the 16th century, enriching itself in the process with many stupendous Renaissance palaces. It even had a pope for a brief time, Marcello III. It was during the 1500s that Montepulciano was endowed with the architectural Renaissance masterpiece, the sanctuary church of San Biagio. Placed outside the walls, the church was an example of the new principles of construction, and its perfect geometric harmony, recalling some principles of Vitruvius, transports us, in a second, back to the era of the architect Antonio da San Gallo il Vecchio, a contemporary of Michelangelo, who also participated in the competition for the construction of the new basilica of Saint Peter, in Rome. But Montepulciano's history extends back beyond the Renaissance and the Middle-Ages. It already existed during the time of the Roman Empire, and earlier it had been inhabited by groups of Etruscans.
Inside the city walls, starting at Porta al Prato, the rocky road leads up to Piazza Grande. The competition of the Bravio is held at the end of August each year, in which contestants push wine kegs filled with 80 kg of nails up this steep road. Following the same course, you can take in its grand palaces and its churches. The beautiful church of S. Agostino with its late-Gothic façade, is attributed to the Florentine Michelozzo. Further along is the house where Agnolo Poliziano was born, a key figure of Renaissance growth and of the Florentine court of Lorenzo the Magnificent. It is the palaces rather than the cathedral which dominate Piazza Grande: the late-Gothic Village Hall, the Renaissance Nobili-Tarugi palace in travertine, the pre-Baroque Cantucci palace. All this without forgetting that in the heart of Montepulciano there are ancient cellars, mysterious and inebriated with the aroma of wine must, that no visitor should miss.

CHIUSI
Dante saw it as dead, in the short space of the 1200s, but he knew of its ancient prosperity, when it was dominated by Porsenna, legendary Etruscan king. The city is criss-crossed by canals which the Etruscans dug in order to provide water to the all the citizens of Chiusi. It is possible to imagine that far-away time, present in the faces of the villagers and in the collection of the stupendous Archaeological Museum, among the richest, most beautiful, and, above all, the best arranged in all of Italy. It is possible to visit the Etruscan tombs, (including one decorated with a monkey), and the Tomb of Hell's Chariot, with perfectly preserved cave paintings, immersed in the hills below Mount Cetona.
It is likewise possible to visit a paleocristian cathedral, which was only partially reconstructed during the 1800s, and the catacombs. Chiusi is the third most important city in the world to offer such suggestive subterranean burial places. In Chiusi, you can lose yourself in the gorge of time just as you can lose yourself in its subterranean labyrinths, only recently made available for visiting. These places host one of the greatest epigraph collections in all of Italy.

THE ETRUSCANS
Val di Chiana has one of the highest concentrations of remains of the Etruscans. A great deal has been revealed but a great deal more remains unknown, adding to the fantasy and mystery that characterize ancient Etruria.
For centuries and to this day, the area hides the mysterious monumental tomb of Porsenna, but displays its treasures in the museum in Chiusi. Necropoli are scattered throughout the territory, from Cortona, with its marvelous Necropoli del Sodo and its gigantic burial mounds, to the Tomb of Hell's Chariot, near Sarteano, dating back to the 4th century B.C. The Museum of Cianciano Terme explains the Etruscans' relationship with the thermal waters, knowledge that they imparted to the Romans, and there are remains of the temples built in homage to the divinities of the curative waters. But you can even go back to prehistorical times at the sites of Mount Ceona, at the grottos of the cave dwellers and at the remains of a 3000-year-old village found at the Rocca di Radicofani. All this will fascinate those who seek the origins of history.

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