Pitigliano

About this place

Pitigliano is a town in the province of Grosseto in southern Tuscany, Italy, about 80 km southeast of Grosseto and some 37 km west of Orvieto in a straight line. It is listed among the most beautiful villages of Italy. The area was inhabited in Etruscan times, but the first written mention of the town dates from 1061. In the early 13th century it belonged to the Aldobrandeschi family and became capital of the surrounding county, passing to the Orsini family in 1293. The town is nicknamed little Jerusalem for its long-established Jewish community and synagogue. Old stone houses crowd the edge of a tuff crag, so they look like an extension of the cliff itself, above a deep green valley. The rock around the town is cut with a series of hand-carved passages and cuttings of different depths, a tower and the Orsini palace rise above the town, and remains of an old aqueduct survive. Visitors stop at the viewpoint on the road opposite to photograph the town on its cliff, then wander its narrow stone lanes and squares. The view is loveliest in morning or evening light, when the stone glows.