Cultural
Val d'Orcia
Pienza
Inscribed 2004
Photo : Anna.Massini (CC BY 4.0)
Located in southern Tuscany near the town of Pienza, Val d'Orcia is a cultivated landscape that represents an exceptional example of 14th and 15th century Renaissance town planning and land organization. The site encompasses the Orcia River valley and surrounding territories that were deliberately shaped according to humanist principles and geometric planning ideals of the Renaissance period. Its visual character is defined by harmoniously organized agricultural land, cypress-lined roads, fortified settlements, and religious buildings arranged in accordance with aesthetic and philosophical concepts of order and proportion. The valley's inscription as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004 recognizes its outstanding universal value as a landscape that demonstrates the relationship between human settlement and the natural environment during the Renaissance. The site illustrates how territorial organization reflected both practical agricultural needs and intellectual ideals about the proper arrangement of human habitation and land use. Val d'Orcia remains an intact example of how Renaissance thought was applied to landscape design and territorial administration in medieval and early modern Italy.
Location
Pienza
Inscription
2004
