Monte San Savino
Monte San Savino is 43km (27 miles) from Arezzo on the SS73; tourist info consists of pamphlets left in the foyer of the town library at Piazza Gamurrini 3 (tel. 0575-843-098; www.comune.monte-san-savino.ar.it). It was a Roman city partly demolished in 1325 by the Aretines. The scenic walled hill town retains some medieval and Renaissance structures that make it worth stopping over. Its ceramic and majolica trade, famous for centuries and still going strong in little shops throughout town, produced ceramist Andrea Contucci (1460-1529), who eventually took up sculpture as well and became known as Andrea Sansovino, master Renaissance carver.
You can see two of Andrea Sansovino's ceramic pieces in the church of Santa Chiara; his altarpiece of the Madonna and Child with Saints was probably glazed by Andrea or Giovanni della Robbia, and the unglazed Saints Lorenzo, Roch, and Sebastian was one of his earliest masterpieces. Next door in the 14th-century Cassero, site of the summertime tourist office, is a small ceramics museum open by appointment (tel. 0575-844-845). Admission is 2€ ($2.60), and they'll open the doors Tuesday through Sunday from 9:30am to 12:30pm and 4 to 7pm.
Corso Sangallo leads from here past the 1515 Palazzo di Monte on the right, built by Antonio da Sangallo the Elder, who collaborated with Sansovino on the weather-beaten but harmonious Loggia dei Mercanti across the street (1518-20). The Pieve, farther along the street on the right, was built in 1100 and remodeled in the 18th century; it contains some early Sansovino works, including a sarcophagus (1498) just inside the main door. The Palazzo Pretorio beyond on the right is a 14th-century Perugian structure, while on Piazza di Monte is the disintegrating Sansovino door on Sant'Agostino. Andrea Sansovino designed the double loggia against the inside front wall of this church, as well as the cloister (1528), entered from a door to the left of the facade on the piazza outside. The artist's simple tomb slab was discovered in 1969 under the pulpit. Giorgio Vasari did the altarpiece of the Assumption in 1539.
Lucignano
A byroad leads 8km (5 miles) south to the tiny elliptical burg of Lucignano (www.comune.lucignano.ar.it), a popular aerial photo on posters in area tourist offices. The focuses of the town's four concentric ellipses are the Collegiata, with its pretty oval staircase, and the Palazzo Comunale, with its small museum (tel. 0575-836-128 or 0575-838-001). The collections include two Signorelli works, 15th-century frescoes, a triptych by Bartolo di Fredi, and a beautifully crafted gold reliquary more than 2.4m (8 ft.) high called the Tree of Lucignano (1350-1471). The museum is open Tuesday and Thursday through Sunday from 10am to 1pm and 2:30 to 6pm. Admission is 3€ ($3.90) adults, 2€ ($2.60) seniors over 60.
Sinalunga
Although technically in Siena's province and not Arezzo's, the industrial center of Sinalunga is a Valdichiana town 8km (5 miles) south of Lucignano. The tourist office is at Piazza della Repubblica 8 (tel. 0577-636-045; www.sinalunga.it/info), open from May to October 14 Monday through Saturday from 9am to noon and 4 to 7pm, October 15 through April Tuesday through Saturday from 9am to noon. The Collegiata has a Madonna and Child by Sodoma in the left transept. The Franciscan convent San Bernardino on the edge of town still preserves its Annunciation (1470) by Benedetto di Giovanni, but Sano di Pietro's Madonna and Child was stolen in 1971 and replaced with a photograph. Sinalunga is near Montepulciano and the hill towns of southern Tuscany.
