From the stone wall around Piazzale Garibaldi, on a hillside in Cortona, the view is mostly of flat land. Field runs into field, broken up by the green lines of poplars and the occasional small grouping of trees. Red roof tiles add color here and there, and a few office buildings mar the panorama, reminding you it's the 21st century, not the 12th.

A few miles away, on your left, a hill rises from the plain, and from this distance its gentle curves illustrate the eons it's been standing there. The gleaming mass behind it is a lake, which has been called Trasimeno for at least 2,200 years, and it's a spot much favored by classical history buffs who come to see the place Hannibal's army trounced the Romans during the Second Punic War.

The wall itself is even older. The commune has been in this spot for at least 3,000 years, the walls are Etruscan, the city itself an enemy of Rome until the defeat of Perugia in 310 B.C.

It is in this setting - in this exact location, in fact - where my first memory of tasting gelato takes place.

It was limone, in a dish bought from the gelateria now called Dolce Vita, on the via Nazionale, just down the road, and what I remember is that it tasted more like lemons than actual lemons did. And I remember wondering, back home again in the U.S. several weeks later, why the Italians seemed to hold the monopoly on those kinds of sensory experiences. Why their tomatoes tasted like sun and mine like tomato-flavored cardboard. Why their towns looked to be designed painstakingly by artists and mine by a cheap businessman with a chip on his shoulder and not much time.

I admit, with some embarrassment, that for a while I fell prey to that backpacker trap of comparing everything - unfavorably - to Italy.

Of this fault I am cured, for the most part.

But some things just beg to be compared.

And gelato is one of them.

Even the American gelatieri themselves compare their ice cream to the ambrosia made by their Italian brethren. They'll make a nod to Italy by using the name stracciatella instead of chocolate chip, never mind that it doesn't come close to the level of complexity found in the real thing, which could easily stand in for a love potion or a peace offering, if you found yourself in need. They'll name their strawberry sorbetto fragola, although it tastes more like strawberry milk than the essence of summer, and their hazelnut nocciola, while it has no taste at all.

This bugs me. If you hadn't noticed.

It annoyed Brunswick's Bruno Tropeano, too. So much that he and business partner Josh Davis decided to open up a real Italian gelateria in town, serving up gelato like you can get in Italia. Veramente.

They succeeded, I think. Although, in my eyes, their offerings are even better than the "real thing."

The stuff at Gelato Fiasco is sweet and dense and impossibly creamy. The brownie batter tastes like you licked it from the spoon, without the metallic aftertaste of canola oil and uncooked egg. The orange tastes like an orange would taste in an orange grove, sun-dappled, while you sampled a wedge from a fruit just fallen from the most beautiful tree that ever was.

The gelato at Gelato Fiasco tastes, to me, like the pinnacle of gelato-alchemy.

In the gelato at Gelato Fiasco you can taste not only the hundreds of years of Italian history that went into perfecting it, but Maine, overlaid.

"Josh and I go strawberry picking during the strawberry season to get fresh ingredients," said Alex Greenlee, 20, an assistant gelatieri at Fiasco. "We use local ingredients. Garelick Farms milk."

Perhaps if I were Italian, I would prefer the fragola flavor there.

But I'm American, and I think Maine strawberries are the best in the world.

What: Gelato Fiasco

Where: 74 Maine St., Brunswick

When: Monday-Thursday from 7:30 a.m. until 11 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 7:30 to midnight, Sunday from noon until 11 p.m.

Why: The world's best gelato, coffee, funky decor.

Atmosphere: Funky, relaxed.

Prices: Not too bad. Spent about $13 on three huge dishes with three flavors apiece.

Call: 607-4002 or go to www.gelatofiasco.com

Many of the gelato flavors at Gelato Fiasco are traditional, Alex Greenlee, an assistant gelatieri, told me. Like tiramisu, stracciatella and fragola. "Bruno is actually Italian himself," Greenlee said. "His idea was to do what they do there, even better here. ...We really try to keep to the tradition. We do keep to the tradition."

Brownie batter is an American invention. And the gelatieri at Fiasco also take customer suggestions - although some work out better than others. "Vidalia onion happened once," Greenlee said. "Probably shouldn't mention it. It's kind of a rough area. It was a little unsuccessful."

Other customer suggestions have become wildly popular. "Creme brulee is a good example of a customer suggestion that we make just about every day now," Greenlee said.

A dozen or so flavors are made fresh every day, and no gelato ever sits in the case for more than three days.