The great former tobacco drying sheds
In the upper Tiber valley, on the border with Tuscany, Città di Castello is an elegant Renaissance town, enclosed by walls, with palaces of the Vitelli family, the lords of the city in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, a cathedral with a round bell tower and a Pinacoteca that preserves works by Raphael, Luca Signorelli and Ghirlandaio. But the town is famous above all as the birthplace of Alberto Burri (1915-1995), one of the greatest Italian artists of the twentieth century, a pioneer of informal art, known for his works made with poor materials, such as sacks of jute, burnt plastic, wood, iron and the "cretti", cracked surfaces that recall the dry earth.
Burri left his native town two extraordinary museums managed by the Fondazione Burri. The Palazzo Albizzini, a Renaissance palace, opened in 1981, displays in chronological order his works from the 1940s to the 1980s, including the famous "Sacchi", "Combustioni", "Legni", "Ferri" and "Cretti". The Ex Seccatoi del Tabacco, a huge industrial complex on the edge of the town where tobacco leaves were once dried, painted entirely black by the artist, hosts in its vast spaces his large cycles of the last years, such as "Il Viaggio" and "Sestante", monumental works of great impact, designed for these spaces, and in the park outside, large metal sculptures. Burri is also the author of the Grande Cretto of Gibellina, in Sicily, a huge concrete work that covers the ruins of the village destroyed by the earthquake of 1968. Città di Castello is also famous for its white truffle fair, in autumn.
Tip: a combined ticket covers both Burri museums; the Ex Seccatoi are on the outskirts, reachable on foot or by car.
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