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AREZZO |
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AREZZO , 65km southeast of Florence, has a charming old quarter,
unspoilt enough to catch the eye a few years back of local folk-hero and
deliberate clown of Italian cinema Roberto Benigni . Many key scenes in
his Oscar-winning La Vita è Bella (Life Is Beautiful) were filmed in
Arezzo, and strolling on its quiet streets is like a breath of fresh air
after days spent doing battle with Florence's big-city grind.
Arezzo was a major Etruscan and Roman city, and was a prosperous
independent republic in the Middle Ages, until, in 1289, its Ghibelline
loyalties precipitated military defeat at the hands of Guelph
Florentines. In the arts, Petrarch, Pietro Aretino and Vasari, all
native Aretines, brought lasting prestige to the city, yet it was an
outsider who gave Arezzo its permanent Renaissance monument - Piero
della Francesca , whose extraordinary frescoes belong in the same
company with Masaccio's in Florence and Michelangelo's in Rome. Today,
the local economy relies on innumerable jewellers and goldsmiths (the
city has the world's largest gold manufacturing plant) and on the
antiques trade: Piazza Grande has showrooms filled with the sort of
furniture you put in a bank vault rather than in your living room and
once a month - on the first Sunday and the Saturday preceding it - a
vast Fiera Antiquaria (see www.comune.arezzo.it ) occupies the square.
The array of some 600 stalls is fun to browse though, but don't expect
any bargains, even among the more junk-laden stalls on the fringes.
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