Giro d’Italia 2013 Stage 9 is a Medium Mountain stage between Sansepolcro and Firenze (Florence). The length of the course is 170 km.

Giro d’Italia 2013 Stage 9 quick info

  • DATE: May 12, 2013, Sunday
  • STAGE TYPE: Medium Mountain
  • START-FINISH: Sansepolcro (312 m) > Firenze (104 m)
  • LENGTH OF THE COURSE: 170 km
  • DIFFICULTY:

Giro d’Italia 2013 Stage 9 profile

Giro d'Italia 2013 Stage 9 Profile
Giro d’Italia 2013 Stage 9 Profile

Giro d’Italia 2013 Stage 9 map

Giro d'Italia 2013 Stage 9 map
Giro d’Italia 2013 Stage 9 map

Giro d’Italia 2013 Stage 9 start town: Sansepolcro

Sansepolcro, formerly Borgo Santo Sepolcro, is a town and comune in Tuscany, Italy, in the province of Arezzo.

Sansepolcro
Giro d’Italia 2013 Stage 9 start town – Panorama of Sansepolcro, Italy

Situated on the upper reaches of the Tiber river, the town is the birthplace of the painters Piero della Francesca (c. 1415 – 12 October 1492), Raffaellino del Colle (1490-1566, a pupil of Raphael), Matteo di Giovanni (c. 1430 – 1495), Santi di Tito (December 5, 1536 – July 25, 1603) and Angiolo Tricca (17 February 1817 – 23 March 1884).

Sansepolcro was also the birthplace of the Italian mathematician Luca Pacioli (c. 1447 – 19 June 1517), and of Matteo Cioni, who translated Piero della Francesca’s treatise about perspective in painting (De prospectiva pingendi) into Latin.

Today, the economy of the town is based on agriculture, industrial manufacturing, food processing and pharmaceuticals. It is the home of Buitoni pasta, founded by Giulia Buitoni in 1827.

Main sights

The main church is the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist built in Gothic-Romanesque style in 1012-49. Other churches of note are San Francesco and San Lorenzo. The latter church has a Deposition by Rosso Fiorentino.

The English writer Aldous Huxley described the Resurrection by Piero della Francesca, which is in the Museo Civico, as “the greatest painting in the world”[citation needed]. The museum collection includes three other works by Piero della Francesca and many other treasures including paintings by Santi di Tito, Raffaellino del Colle, and Luca Signorelli.

Giro d’Italia 2013 Stage 9 finish city: Florence (Firenze)

Florence (Firenze)
Giro d’Italia 2013 Stage 9 finish city – General view of Florence (Firenze).

Firenze (Florence) is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany (Toscana) and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area.

The historic center of Florence attracts millions of tourists each year, and Euromonitor International ranked the city as the world’s 72nd most visited in 2009, with 1,685,000 visitors. Florence is also an important city in Italian fashion, being ranked within the top fifty fashion capitals of the world; furthermore, it is also a major national economic center, being a tourist and industrial hub.

Florence (Firenze)
Ponte Vecchio (Old Bridge) is a medieval stone closed-spandrel segmental arch bridge over the Arno River, in Florence, Italy. It is noted for the shops built on top of it, as was once common. Butchers, tanners, and farmers initially occupied the shops; the present tenants are jewelers, art dealers, and souvenir sellers. The Ponte Vecchio’s two neighboring bridges are the Ponte Santa Trinita and the Ponte alle Grazie. The bridge spans the Arno at its narrowest point where it is believed that a bridge was first built in Roman times when the via Cassia crossed the river at this point. The Roman piers were of stone, the superstructure of wood.[citation needed] The bridge first appears in a document of 996 and was destroyed by a flood in 1117 and reconstructed in stone. In 1218 the Ponte alla Carraia, a wooden structure, was established nearby which led to it being referred to as “Ponte Nuovo” relative to the older (Vecchio) structure. It was swept away again in 1333 except for two of its central piers, as noted by Giovanni Villani (c. 1276 or 1280 – 1348, an Italian banker, official, diplomat, and chronicler from Florence) in his Nuova Cronica. It was rebuilt in 1345. Giorgio Vasari recorded the traditional view of his day that attributed its design to the medieval Italian painter and architect Taddeo Gaddi (c. 1290, Florence – 1366, Florence) – besides Giotto (c. 1267 – January 8, 1337, the Italian painter and architect from Florence during the Late Middle Ages) one of the few artistic names of the trecento still recalled two hundred years later. Modern historians present the Italian architect Neri di Fioravanti (? – 1374, Florence) as a possible candidate as the builder. Sheltered in a little loggia at the central opening of the bridge is a weathered dedication stone, which once read Nel trentatrè dopo il mille-trecento, il ponte cadde, per diluvio dell’ acque: poi dieci anni, come al Comun piacque, rifatto fu con questo adornamento. The Torre dei Mannelli was built at the southeast corner of the bridge to defend it. The bridge consists of three segmental arches: the main arch has a span of 30 meters (98 feet) the two side arches each span 27 meters (89 feet). The rise of the arches is between 3.5 and 4.4 meters (11½ to 14½ feet), and the span-to-rise ratio 5:1. The shallow segmental arches, which require fewer piers than the semicircular arch traditionally used by Romans, enabled ease of access and navigation for animal-drawn carts. Another notable design element is the large piazza at the center of the bridge that Leon Battista Alberti described as a prominent ornament in the city. Damage shown shortly after liberation in August 1944 during World War II It has always hosted shops and merchants who displayed their goods on tables before their premises, after authorization by the Bargello (a sort of a lord mayor, a magistrate, and a police authority). The back shops (retrobotteghe) that may be seen from upriver, were added in the seventeenth century. During World War II, the Ponte Vecchio was not destroyed by the German army during their retreat at the advance of the British 8th Army on 4 August 1944, unlike all the other bridges in Florence. This was, according to many locals and tour guides, because of an express order by Hitler. Access to the Ponte Vecchio was, however, obstructed by the destruction of the buildings at both ends of the bridge, which have since been rebuilt using a combination of original and modern designs.
Florence (Firenze)
Arno river. It is the most important river of central Italy after the Tiber.

The city attracts millions of tourists each year, and UNESCO declared the Historic Centre of Florence a World Heritage Site in 1982. The city is noted for its culture, Renaissance art and architecture, and monuments. The city also contains numerous museums and art galleries, such as the Uffizi Gallery and the Palazzo Pitti, and still exerts an influence in the fields of art, culture, and politics. Due to Florence’s artistic and architectural heritage, Forbes has ranked it as one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

Climbs of the Giro d’Italia 2013 Stage 9

There are 4 main climbs in the stage route:

  1. Passo Della Consuma (1060m @81.8 km): Starting at 49.5th kilometer at Bibbiena (378m). Riders will gain 721 meters in 32.3 km (average 2.2%).
  2. Vallombrosa (957m @106.7 km): Starting at 97.9th kilometer at Patero (397m). Riders will gain 560 meters in 8.8km (average 6.3%, 12%max).
Giro d'Italia 2013 Stage 9 climb details (Vallombrosa)
Giro d’Italia 2013 Stage 9 climb details (Vallombrosa)

Vetta le Croci (545m @147.9 km): Starting at 137.6th kilometer at Sieci (71m). Riders will gain 474 meters in 10.3km (average 4.6%, max. 12%).

Giro d'Italia 2013 Stage 9 climb details (Vetta le Croci)
Giro d’Italia 2013 Stage 9 climb details (Vetta le Croci)

Fiesole (295m @159.3 km): Starting at 156.3rd kilometer at Pian di Mugnone (127m). Riders will gain 168 meters in 3km (average 5.7%, max. 11%).

Giro d'Italia 2013 Stage 9 climb details (Fiesole)
Giro d’Italia 2013 Stage 9 climb details (Fiesole)
Giro d'Italia 2013 Stage 9 last kms
Giro d’Italia 2013 Stage 9 last kilometers

Sources