The numerous and monumental churches, the ancient convents, the personalities who were bornt there or who lived there, from Saint Frances of Assisi to Saint Margherita, form a special cultural and characteristic religious of Cortona and its surroundings .
In fact, Cortona is intimately connected to the first francescan period: "l' Eremo delle Celle" ( the Hermitage of the Cells ) was in fact the first convent made by the order of Saint Frances, when he got in this town for the first time in 1211.In this convent, chutched to the mountain of Saint Egidio and immersed in a mystic atmosphere, apart from the Saint of Assisi, whose poor and bare cells even today gives the visitors an extrodinary emotion, Friar Elia of Cortona , Saint Bonaventura and Saint Antonio of Padova stayed there too.
You arrive there taking the provincial street which goes up alongside the Etruscan wall towards Saint Margherita: a sign on the left indicates the way to the Cells.
The church of San Francesco is in the center of Cortona and you get there taking via Maffei. Friar Elia Coppi, companion of Saint Frances and second general minister of the Order, projected and started to built it in 1245 .
The style is Gothic , with a big rose-windo and elegant mulliared windows on its sicles and apses. Inside you can admire the Announcement ,the last opera of the Cortonese Painter Pietro Berrettini (Petrus of Cortona 1597- 1669) and other frescoes from the school of Siena,emerged during the recent works of restoration. This has permitted the ri-opening of the church and allowed the visiting of tourists.
In the upper part of Cortona, in the shadow of the "Fortress" Medicea of Girifalco, which has become an exposition of modern art, you can see the Basilica of Santa Margherita (1247-1297). The intact body of the Saint is on the major altar. On the right hand side of the altar the crucifix which, according to the legend, talked with the Saint, is an important woodwork of the year '200. From the square you may admire a splendid view of the valley ( Valdichiana) with the mountain Amiata, the mountain Cetona and the lake of Trasimeno.
Just outside the historical centre a visit to the church of " Santa Maria delle Grazie al Calcinaio", is a must; the most pure expression of religious architecture of Renaissance and realised by Francesco di Giorgio Martini (1439-1501) and the church of " Santa Maria Nuova", the initial project was made by the cortonese architect Giovan Battista Infregliati and after his death, it was continued by Giorgio Vasari. Positioned at the sides of the city, these two churches seem to be built as protection of the city in the name of the Virgin Mary.