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The foundation of the city is lost in the fog of numerous legends of which there are traces going back to the classical era.
The guidebook from the sixteen hundreds by Giacomo Lauro, refers to writings by Annio Viterbese (1432-1502), who touches on many writers of antiquity. He reports that eight hundred years after the Flood, Noah while navigating at the mouth of the Tiber River , crosses il Paglia and enters into the valley of the Chiana. He likes this place more than any other in Italy as it is very fertile land and therefore stops and lives there for thirty years. One of his offspring named Crano arrives at one of the hills and is very pleased with the altitude, the amenities and the air of tranquility. He builds the city of Cortona.
Crano, after taking the title of King, constructs a kingdom of towers high on the hill of which there are still remains in an area called Torremozza. The kingdom of Crano was called Turrenia because the city that the descendant of Noah constructed had high towers. This was the first name of Tuscany and the inhabitants were called Turreni. However, as they were descendants of Noah who had been spared from the waters "ab imbribus" some were called Imbri or in vernacular Umbri.
From the descendants of Crano, Dardanus was born. Following internal turmoil he flees to Samotracia then to Frigia and finally to Lydia , where he founded the city of Troy. From Troy descendants of Dardanus, now Greeks, return to live in Turrenia, that is Tuscany , and they were the Etruscans.
Among these Greeks who came to Turrenia and Cortona were Ulysses and Pythagoras. According to Virgil (Eneide III and IV), Enea a descendant of Dardano fled the destroyed city of Troy to Lazio where his descendants founded Rome. This would have Cortona giving origin first to Troy and then to Rome .
Besides legend, the historical notes to be found concerning the city are numerous, however not precise and sometimes contradictory. Modern historiography today seems to admit that Cortona was in origin and Umbran city, then conquered and enlarged by the Etruscans to become one of the most powerful lucomonie among the Etruscan confederacy together with Perugia and Arezzo. Evidence of its strategic position would be the extensive perimeter of its walls, the tombs of its royalty, all the archaelogical relics of this period which point out a rich city flourishing in artistic and industrial activity, minting a coing which from what has remained must be considered among the more perfect of ancient Etrusca.
Around the year 310 B.C., the greater part of the Etruscan lucomonie (or city-states) were conquered by Rome. Cortona makes an agreement with the powerful city and enters into its realm and will have to witness what is described by Polybius and Livy as one of the most disastrous ambushes endured by the Roman army. The ambush took place in Cortona's territory and was concluded along the banks of Lake Trasimene.
In the era of the social war it probably was submitted (as was Arezzo) to the repression of Silla which was yet another blow leading to the loss of its strategic importance and economy. Written accounts of the times tell us however that in the first and second century after Christ, Cortona had a flourishing political and administrative life.
It is due to this fact that, when during the second half of the third century of the Christian era the Roman Municipalities of Tuscany started to install dioceses for Christian bishops that Cortona probably became a bishopric.
The fall of the Roman Empire was followed by the occupation of the Goths (476-553), which the Byzantines placed an end to wht a war between the Generals of the Emperor Justinian, Belisarius and Narsete, and the Goth King Teodato, Vitige, Totila and Treaia. The Gothic War (535-553) brought about a significant decrease in the Italic population. It was Charlamagne who put an end to the Longobard occupation in 774.
At the begining of the the century with the arrival of Saint Francis in 1211, the city is taken over by Franciscan charisma. In contrast to the message for peace of the charismatic Franciscans, the century was deeply troubled by internal fighting among parties of various social classes and wars with neighbors.
Later in 1411, Ladislao di Durazzo put up his war-prize city up for sale. It was bought on January 14 by the Florentines for 60,000 gold flors and became a territory of the Florentine Republic .
Of the renaissance atmosphere which was inaugurated by Lorenzo the Magnificent and ended with Leo X, Cortona preserves important works of art. The most splendid of which are the paintings by Luca Signorelli (1445/50-1523).
Fonte: Wikipedia