VOLTERRA The earliest references to the city date to Villanovan times, that is to the iron age (9th-7th cent. B.C.). As Velathri, it was for a long time one of the most powerful lucumonies in Etruria. It was so important that in the 3rd century B.C. it had around 25,000 inhabitants and was the last lucumony to fall to the Romans after a siege that lasted two years (81-80 B.C.). The city was quite powerful between the 12th and 14th centuries when it often found itself fighting Pisa, Florence, Siena and San Gimignano for a question of territory and finally fell to the Florentines in 1361.
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Already famous in Etruscan times, Cortona became an ally of Rome in the 4th century B.C. In the 13th century it became a free commune but at the end of the century it was occupied by Arezzo. After alternating political vicissitudes the city became a signoria of the Casali fa-mily. In 1411 it entered the Florentine sphere of in-fluence and then followed the destiny of the Gran Duchy of Tuscany.
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