Piazza Signorelli

Piazza Signorelli is a historic square in Cortona, framed by buildings associated with the town’s civic and cultural life. Palazzo Casali, once the residence of the ruling Casali family and later of Florentine commissioners, houses the Museo dell’Accademia Etrusca e della Città di Cortona, together with the municipal library, historical archive and Etruscan Academy. The medieval council chamber of the town hall also faces the square. Teatro Signorelli occupies the site of the former church of Sant’Andrea, and its loggia preserves the memory of the old grain-market arcades. These adjoining institutions make the piazza a meeting point of municipal government, museums and performance. Luca Signorelli was born in Cortona, and the square named for him holds both the Palazzo Casali — now the town's Etruscan museum — and the theatre that also bears the painter's name. Steep, walled and Etruscan in origin, Cortona compresses a great deal into a small hill, and this piazza is its social hinge. Open-air performances take place here through the summer, Puccini's La bohème among them.