There's really only one reason people go to Arezzo: fifteenth-century artist Piero della Francesca. His fresco cycle, The Legend of the True Cross, which decorates the choir of the church of San Francesco is one of the high points of early Renaissance art.
But over the past few years, visitors have been met with varying degrees of scaffolding and inaccessibility as a huge restoration project unfolded very slowly, Italian-style. Due finish in 1992 to celebrate the five-hundredth anniversary of Piero's birth, the project actually took 15 years and was completed only this month. The damage, as with many Italian frescoes, was caused by a combination of leaks, earthquakes, vandalism (in this case from Napoleonic troops, who shot at the figures with their muskets - a similar fate to that of the Elgin marbles on the Parthenon) and earlier restorations that started an unforeseen chemical reaction.
But now the project, described by some as the most complex, difficult and problematic restoration of great fresco cycles that our generation has had to face - and that includes the Sistine Chapel in Rome - is finished and the complete cycle is visible on the three walls around the altar. When I was there last autumn, the northern wall was accessible only to those who bought a ticket and climbed the scaffolding with a guide. To be within touching distance of these important paintings, to be able to see the brush strokes, was profoundly moving. And it was immediately apparent that the restorers were doing a very sympathetic job, rather than overpainting and colouring, as their colleagues have been accused of doing in the Sistine chapel.
Close up, the majestic figures assume personalities: they look out from lively eyes, die expressive deaths. Their greasy hair tails off into thin, single brush-stroke strands. Many of the figures become quickly familiar because Piero used the same model over and over again. You feel ready to greet one dark-haired bearded local as he variously fights, marches and blows a trumpet, and it is with regret that you realise there is no way, 500 years later, of finding out who he was.
Also visible are the charcoal dots pricked through paper on to the walls by Piero's apprentices as a way of transferring the preliminary drawings on to the walls, and the restoration has not been so heavy-handed that the daily division of Piero's work has been obliterated. Fresco work should be done on wet plaster, otherwise it flakes off. The apprentices had to gauge daily which area might be used and wet the plaster accordingly: the resultant small variations in colour have helped art historians learn about the artists.
Piero was famously slow. He started work on the frescoes in around 1452. Born in nearby Borgo San Sepolcro (now Sansepolcro) where he is recorded as a town councillor in 1442, he had started work on the Madonna della Misericordia there in 1445 and his reputation would have come to the attention of the Bacci family in Arezzo, who commissioned him to decorate San Francesco.
As was common practice at the time, Piero included his patrons in the cycle, in pious poses in the presence of the true cross. The story he chose to decorate the church choir was the medieval 'Golden Legend' by Jacopo de Voragine, a tale of redemption through the burial and subsequent rediscovery of the true cross, which starts with Adam's original sin. Piero chose to depict the story artistically rather than chronologically, making best use of the vaulted shape of the building.
On the northern wall is a great battle scene showing the Byzantine Christian emperor Heraclius defeating the Persian king Chosroes. The ferocious and bloody battle is primarily arranged in an early version of perspective, using several rows of foreground figures distinct from the background landscape. It is an extraordinary tour de force that contrasts sharply with the more pastoral scenes above (one of which depicts the walled city of Arezzo as Jerusalem). Piero wrote two treatises on perspective and mathematics, and like his Florentine contemporary Uccello, experimented with architect Alberti's recent theories on perspective and vanishing points.
Arezzo has a few other things to look at: there is a small Piero Magdalen on the wall of the duomo, an imposing church at the town's summit. Vasari, a late Renaissance artist (taught by his distant relation, Signorelli), who wrote The Lives of the Artists (probably the most important source work on Renaissance artists in their context) designed and lived in a house not far from the duomo.
Arezzo is a lovely place to walk around, steep like all Tuscan towns, with beautifully decorated buildings and a shady park at the summit. However, unlike Lucca, where the car is discouraged and everybody rides bikes, cars roar about Arezzo's narrow streets and you often have to jump into doorways. There are two distinct sections: the old walled part on the hill surrounded by ramparts and imposing gates, and the new bustling development below. Hotel rooms go fast, and local hoteliers and restaurateurs show, on the whole, an indifference to their customers which is unusual for the region. The town gets crowded every month for the antiques fair, and shops in the old town stock a wonderful collection of things - particularly ecclesiastical candlesticks, extraordinary telescopes, astrolabes and silver. But although Arezzo is also famed for its gold merchants, there are few bargains to be had.
Florence is the nearest airport to Arezzo, but flights can be overbooked and expensive. We flew from Stansted to Pisa by Ryanair (£54 one way) and hired a car. This airline also flies to Rimini.
Trains: Italy has a superb rail system and Arezzo's station is in the new part of the town, about 10 minutes' walk from the sights.
