Tuscany Revealed - Highlights and hidden treasures of Cosimo de Medici’s Grand Duchy

Fly at c. 8.00am (British Airways) from London Heathrow to Pisa. Isolated on the coastal plain, the Romanesque basilica of San Piero a Grado has one of the finest sets of medieval frescoes to be found anywhere. Continue to Lucca. Within the perfectly preserved circuit of Renaissance ramparts lies one of the loveliest stretches of urban scene in Italy. First of four nights in Lucca.

The morning walk takes in enchanting streets and major buildings, including the Romanesque cathedral of S. Martino, home of the extraordinarily beautiful Gothic tomb of Ilaria del Carretto. Walk out to the Villa Guinigi, a rare survival of a 14th-century villa and now a museum housing a choice collection of medieval paintings.

The exceptionally attractive town of Pistoia has important art and architecture including an octagonal baptistry, a Renaissance hospital with a ceramic frieze by the della Robbia workshop and a pulpit crowded with expressive figures carved by Giovanni Pisano. In the cathedral there is a unique silver altarpiece which took 150 years to complete. Villa Garzoni at Collodi has one of the finest surviving examples of 17th-century gardens, with terraces excavated out of a steep hillside.

In the Middle Ages Pisa was one of the most powerful maritime city-states in the Mediterranean, the rival of Venice and Genoa, deriving great wealth from its trade with the Levant. The ‘Campo dei Miracoli’ is a magnificent ensemble of cathedral, burial ground, campanile (‘Leaning Tower’) and baptistery, all of gleaming white marble.

A wonderful drive through Tuscan hills leads to Volterra, a rugged medieval hilltop town with an art gallery and a Romanesque cathedral, which again has fine Renaissance sculpture. Continue to Colle di Val d’Elsa, where the next five nights are spent.

With its fourteen 13th-century, hundred-foot tower houses is an amazing sight. Visit the collegiate church which contains two great cycles of trecento frescoes depicting scenes from the Old and New Testaments. The town hall also has 14th-century frescoes and houses a small art gallery. Study the development of the city in the streets, alleys and squares, and walk along a stretch of the walls.

The largest of the hilltop towns of Tuscany, distinguished by architecture and art of exquisite elegance. The scallop-shaped piazza is one of the most beautiful urban spaces in the world; Duccio’s Maestà, housed in the cathedral museum, is the finest of all medieval altarpieces. The cathedral is an imposing construction of white and green marble with medieval and Renaissance artworks of the highest quality.

In little towns such as these, alongside seeing fascinating buildings and pictures, there is the opportunity to relish the picturesque delights of ancient, and still thriving, hilltop communities. Certaldo, birthplace of the 14th-century writer Boccaccio, has a redoubtable little governor’s palace and a small art gallery; Monteriggioni has an exceptionally intact circuit of walls and towers.

Montepulciano is distinguished among hill towns for its number of grand buildings of the 16th century, including the cathedral, though excellent works of art inside survive from its predecessor. The Tempio di S. Biagio (Antonio da Sangallo, 1518) is a major work of the High Renaissance. Pienza provides wonderful views of inimitable rolling countryside; its centre – piazza, palace, town hall, cathedral – was built in the 1460s in accordance with Renaissance principles at the behest of a local boy who made good: Pope Pius II.

Prato built its wealth on cloth-working. The cathedral has outstanding Renaissance sculpture and painting, notably Donatello’s pulpit with dancing putti and frescoes by Filippo Lippi. Visit also the 13th-century Hohenstaufen castle and the Museo di Palazzo Pretorio, reopened in 2014 after restoration, housing works by Filippo and Filippini Lippi among others. Fly from Pisa to London Heathrow, arriving c. 9.00pm.