Sansepolcro
Encyclopedia
Sansepolcro is a town and comune
Comune
In Italy, the comune is the basic administrative division, and may be properly approximated in casual speech by the English word township or municipality.-Importance and function:...

in Tuscany
Tuscany
Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....

, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, in the province of Arezzo
Province of Arezzo
The Province of Arezzo or Arretium is the easternmost province in the Tuscany region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Arezzo.It has an area of 3,232 km², and a total population of 323,288 in 39 comuni . At June 30, 2005, the main comuni by population are:- External links :...

.

Situated on the upper reaches of the Tiber
Tiber
The Tiber is the third-longest river in Italy, rising in the Apennine Mountains in Emilia-Romagna and flowing through Umbria and Lazio to the Tyrrhenian Sea. It drains a basin estimated at...

 river, Borgo was the birthplace of the painters Piero della Francesca
Piero della Francesca
Piero della Francesca was a painter of the Early Renaissance. As testified by Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the Artists, to contemporaries he was also known as a mathematician and geometer. Nowadays Piero della Francesca is chiefly appreciated for his art. His painting was characterized by its...

, Raffaellino del Colle
Raffaellino del Colle
Raffaellino del Colle was an Italian Mannerist painter active mostly in Umbria. He was born in Colle, Borgo Sansepolcro, Tuscany.He is also called Raffaellino della Colle. A pupil of Raphael, whom he is held to have assisted in the Farnesina and the Vatican. After Raphael's death, Raffaellino...

 (a pupil of Raphael
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...

) and Angiolo Tricca
Angiolo Tricca
Angiolo Tricca was an Italian caricaturist and painter of historical themes. His best known works are the caricatures of Italian artists who attended the Michelangiolo Cafè in Florence ....

. It was also the birthplace of the Italian mathematician
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....

 Luca Pacioli
Luca Pacioli
Fra Luca Bartolomeo de Pacioli was an Italian mathematician, Franciscan friar, collaborator with Leonardo da Vinci, and seminal contributor to the field now known as accounting...

.

Economy is based on agriculture. Industry includes manufacturing, food processing and pharmaceutics. It is the home of Buitoni pasta which was founded by Giulia Buitoni in 1827.

History

According to the tradition, the town was founded around 1000 AD by two pilgrims (Arcanus and Aegidius), who founded here an oratory dedicated to Saint Leonardo (where now is the Cathedral) during their homecoming from the Holy Land
Holy Land
The Holy Land is a term which in Judaism refers to the Kingdom of Israel as defined in the Tanakh. For Jews, the Land's identifiction of being Holy is defined in Judaism by its differentiation from other lands by virtue of the practice of Judaism often possible only in the Land of Israel...

, bearing a stone from the Holy Sepulchre
Church of the Holy Sepulchre
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, also called the Church of the Resurrection by Eastern Christians, is a church within the walled Old City of Jerusalem. It is a few steps away from the Muristan....

 (San Sepolcro). First historical mentions are slightly later, referring to the Benedictine
Benedictine
Benedictine refers to the spirituality and consecrated life in accordance with the Rule of St Benedict, written by Benedict of Nursia in the sixth century for the cenobitic communities he founded in central Italy. The most notable of these is Monte Cassino, the first monastery founded by Benedict...

 Abbey, the "Badia", built in that period, round which the walled commune
Medieval commune
Medieval communes in the European Middle Ages had sworn allegiances of mutual defense among the citizens of a town or city. They took many forms, and varied widely in organization and makeup. Communes are first recorded in the late 11th and early 12th centuries, thereafter becoming a widespread...

 clustered. During the conflicts between Guelfs and Ghibellines, Borgo's factions were headed by prominent local families, the Pichi, Bercordati, Graziani and Bacci. The city was ruled from Milan
Duchy of Milan
The Duchy of Milan , was created on the 1st of may 1395, when Gian Galeazzo Visconti, Lord of Milan, purchased a diploma for 100,000 Florins from King Wenceslaus. It was this diploma that installed, Gian Galeazzo as Duke of Milan and Count of Pavia...

, then by the Papacy; in 1367 Pope Urban V
Pope Urban V
Pope Urban V , born Guillaume Grimoard, was Pope from 1362 to 1370.-Biography:Grimoard was a native of Grizac in Languedoc . He became a Benedictine and a doctor in Canon Law, teaching at Montpellier and Avignon...

 gave the town and its surrounding contada to Galeotto Malatesta
Galeotto I Malatesta
Galeotto I Malatesta was an Italian condottiero, who was lord of Rimini, Fano, Ascoli Piceno, Cesena and Fossombrone.-Biography:Born in Rimini, he the son of Pandolfo I Malatesta and the brother of Malatesta II Malatesta. In 1333 he was captured while besieging Ferrara, but was soon freed and...

 family, whose heirs
House of Malatesta
The House of Malatesta was an Italian family that ruled over Rimini from 1295 until 1500, as well as other lands and towns in Romagna.Malatesta da Verucchio The House of Malatesta was an Italian family that ruled over Rimini from 1295 until 1500, as well as (in different periods) other lands and...

 ruled it until control was assumed by Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

.

Main sights

English writer Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family. Best known for his novels including Brave New World and a wide-ranging output of essays, Huxley also edited the magazine Oxford Poetry, and published short stories, poetry, travel...

 described the Resurrection
Resurrection (Piero della Francesca)
The Resurrection is a fresco by the Italian Renaissance master Piero della Francesca, painted around 1463-65. Though documentation is lacking, the gothic Residenza, the communal meeting hall in which it was painted, was returned by Florentine authorities to the citizens of Sansepolcro, Tuscany, 1...

by Piero della Francesca
Piero della Francesca
Piero della Francesca was a painter of the Early Renaissance. As testified by Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the Artists, to contemporaries he was also known as a mathematician and geometer. Nowadays Piero della Francesca is chiefly appreciated for his art. His painting was characterized by its...

, which is in the Museo Civico, as "the greatest painting in the world". The museum collection includes three other works by Piero della Francesca
Piero della Francesca
Piero della Francesca was a painter of the Early Renaissance. As testified by Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the Artists, to contemporaries he was also known as a mathematician and geometer. Nowadays Piero della Francesca is chiefly appreciated for his art. His painting was characterized by its...

 and many other treasures including paintings by Santi di Tito
Santi di Tito
Santi di Tito was an Italian painter of Late-Mannerist or proto-Baroque style, what is sometimes referred to as Contra-Maniera or Counter-Mannerism.-Biography:...

, Raffaellino del Colle
Raffaellino del Colle
Raffaellino del Colle was an Italian Mannerist painter active mostly in Umbria. He was born in Colle, Borgo Sansepolcro, Tuscany.He is also called Raffaellino della Colle. A pupil of Raphael, whom he is held to have assisted in the Farnesina and the Vatican. After Raphael's death, Raffaellino...

 and Luca Signorelli
Luca Signorelli
Luca Signorelli was an Italian Renaissance painter who was noted in particular for his ability as a draughtsman and his use of foreshortening...

.

Sister cities

Neuchâtel, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

 Neuves-Maisons
Neuves-Maisons
Neuves-Maisons is a commune in the Meurthe-et-Moselle department in north-eastern France....

, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 Sinj
Sinj
Sinj is a town in the continental part of Split-Dalmatia County, Croatia. The town itself has a population of 11,448, while the population of the administrative municipality which includes surrounding villages is 24,832 ....

, Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...



External links




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