Pitigliano

Pitigliano is a dramatic hilltop town perched on an isolated spur of volcanic tufa rock in the southern Maremma area of Tuscany, in Grosseto Province. Approaching the town from the surrounding plain, the multi-storey medieval buildings appear to grow directly from the vertical rock face, supported in places by Etruscan-era tufa block foundations. The overall effect — the town seeming to emerge seamlessly from its geological base — is extraordinary and accounts for Pitigliano's reputation as one of Tuscany's most striking hill settlements. The town was an important regional centre in the medieval period under the Orsini family, whose Orsini Palace now houses a small civic museum. Pitigliano's most distinctive historic identity is its longstanding Jewish community: the town sheltered Jewish refugees from across Tuscany and the Papal States from the sixteenth century, earning the name 'Little Jerusalem' (Piccola Gerusalemme). The former ghetto, entered via a narrow arched gate off Via Zuccarelli, contains a restored sixteenth-century synagogue, a kosher winery producing Pitigliano's distinctive white wine, ritual baths (mikveh), a butcher's shop, and a bakery — together constituting one of the best-preserved small Jewish quarters in Tuscany. The Vie Cave — deep Etruscan sunken roads carved up to twenty metres into the tufa plateau — radiate from Pitigliano into the surrounding countryside and are best explored on foot or by bicycle. The most accessible is the Via Cava di San Giuseppe, beginning a short walk from the town centre. The town also produces the Bianco di Pitigliano DOC, a crisp Trebbiano-based white wine grown in the local volcanic soil.