Fiesole
2009
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2023
Rocca di Montemurlo. Pieve di San Giovanni Decollato
The parish church of S. Giovanni Battista Decollato opens onto the square of the village. The parish church of Montemurlo has an ancient and controversial history, we find the first trace of it when Otto III, on the occasion of his coronation as emperor (995), descends to Italy for Rome and on his journey (998) confirms the possessions of Bishop Antonino of Pistoia among which our pieve is noted. It has a simple plan, with a single nave with presbytery and choir, modified in the second half of the last century. Originally the parish church had very small dimensions and it was only during the 16th century that we witness the first expansion works carried out by the humanist Bartolomeo Fonzio, parish priest in Montemurlo from 1494 to 1520, who had the rectory and the cloister built alongside the church, of which however, the round arches and columns with Corinthian capitals now walled up can still be traced. The parish church is 'protected' by an imposing bell tower which was originally a watchtower then transformed and refined, in the first half of the 16th century as part of the transformations carried out by the active parish priest, with the large mullioned windows that we see on each side, surmounted by brick arches. The large window is supported by octagonal columns and the shutters of the arches that conclude the tower are decorated with a notched frame that also surrounds the roof. Entering the church we cross a loggia, added during the 17th century, supported by brick columns with Ionic-inspired capitals. The interior of the church, with a goat-like roof, is enriched by four aedicule altars, one of which dates back to the 16th century, a model for the others built in the 18th century. On the altars and walls of the presbytery, valuable paintings by the painters Francesco Granacci, Giovanni Stradano, Matteo rosselli and Giacinto Fabroni.
2007
Siena
Siena is an Italian town of 53 818 inhabitants, the capital of the province of the same name in Tuscany. The city is universally known for its huge historical, artistic and landscape heritage and for its substantial stylistic unity of medieval urban furniture, as well as for the famous Palio. In 1995 its historic center was included in the UNESCO World Heritage Site. The city is home to the Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, founded in 1472 and therefore the oldest bank in business as well as the longest-running in the world.
2021
Vinci. Church of Santa Croce
Of thirteenth-century origin, restored several times, it no longer retains the original structure. The neo-Renaissance style works carried out in the years 1925-1935 gave it its current appearance.
2021
Calci. The Charterhouse of Val Graziosa
The Certosa della Val Graziosa di Calci, commonly known as the Certosa di Pisa or also the Certosa di Calci, is located in the province of Pisa, in the municipality of Calci, in a flat area on the slopes of the Pisan mountains called "Val Graziosa".
2018
Firenze
2008
Prato, the Cathedral
The church, with three naves, is built in white and green marble. It most likely dates back to the 6th century. It is one of the most important examples of religious architecture between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries in the region, with an elegant passage inside it between the large Romanesque-Lombard arches and the impetus of Gothic in the transept, most likely designed by the famous Giovanni Pisano , which inside will create a wooden crucifix and his last masterpiece, the Madonna della Cintola, in 1317. The relic of the sacred Cintola is kept there. The most important works are the external pulpit (built by Michelozzo and decorated by Donatello), the internal pulpit by Mino da Fiesole and Antonio Rossellino from 1472, the Madonna dell'Ulivo, the only work created together by the famous brothers Da Maiano, Giovanni, Benedetto and Giuliano. In the transept instead there are the frescoes by Filippo Lippi (in the Cappella Maggiore), one of the greatest expressions of the Italian Renaissance, the frescoes by Paolo Uccello (in the Cappella dell'Assunta), and by Agnolo Gaddi (in the Chapel of the sacred Cintola), all interior of a bronze gate made by some of the most important goldsmiths of the fifteenth century.
2021
Lucca, Tuscany. The church of San Giusto
The church of San Giusto is a church in Lucca located in the square of the same name. The current building, built on a previous one, dates back to the second half of the 12th century.
2008
Prato
Prato is an Italian town of 194,390 inhabitants, the capital of the province of the same name in Tuscany. It is the second largest city in Tuscany and the third in central Italy by number of inhabitants after Rome and Florence. Until 1992, the year of the constitution of the province of the same name, it was the most populated non-provincial town in Italy, then in the province of Florence. The Prato plain was inhabited since the Etruscan era, but the birth of the city itself dates back, generally, to the 10th century, when we have news of two contiguous but distinct inhabited centers, Borgo al Cornio and Castrum Prati, which merged during the following century. In the Prato economy, textile production has always played a leading role since the Middle Ages, as evidenced by the documents of the merchant Francesco Datini, but it is in the nineteenth century that Prato saw an impetuous industrial development, which still make it one of the most important districts at the European level. The city boasts historical and artistic attractions of great importance, with a cultural itinerary that begins with the Etruscans and then expanded in the Middle Ages and reached its peak with the Renaissance, when artists of the caliber of Donatello, Filippo Lippi and Botticelli.
2021
The Franciscan sanctuary of La Verna.
The Franciscan sanctuary of La Verna (province of Arezzo) is famous for being the place where St. Francis of Assisi received the stigmata on September 16, 1224.
2021
Pisa, the Leaning Tower
The tower of Pisa (popularly known as the leaning tower and, in Pisa, the Campanile or the Tower) is the bell tower of the cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta, in the famous Piazza del Duomo of which it is the most famous monument due to the characteristic slope, symbol of Pisa and among the iconic symbols of Italy. It is a separate bell tower 57 meters high (58.36 meters considering the foundation plan) built over two centuries, between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. With a mass of 14 453 tons, the curved line predominates, with turns of blind arches and six floors of loggias. The slope is due to a subsidence of the underlying land which occurred in the early stages of construction. The inclination of the building measures 3.97 ° with respect to the vertical axis. The tower is managed by the Opera della Primaziale Pisana, a body that manages all the monuments in the Piazza del Duomo in Pisa. It was proposed as one of the seven wonders of the modern world. Work began on 9 August 1173. The foundations were left to rest for a whole year. Some studies attribute the authorship of the project to the Pisan architect Diotisalvi, who was building the baptistery at the same time. The similarities between the two buildings are in fact many, starting with the type of foundations. Others suggest instead Gherardi, while according to Vasari the works were started by Bonanno Pisano. Vasari's thesis was considered valid above all after the discovery in the vicinity of the bell tower of a tombstone with the name of Bonanno, walled up in the atrium of the building; moreover, in the nineteenth century an epigraphic fragment of pink material was always found in the surroundings, probably a cast on which a metal plate was cast, which is placed on the jamb of the building's entrance door. On this fragment we read, upside down: "Pisan citizen named Bonanno". This cast in all probability related to the royal door of the Cathedral, destroyed during the fire of 1595. The first phase of the works was interrupted in the middle of the third floor, due to the subsidence of the land on which the base of the bell tower stands. The softness of the ground, made up of normally consolidated soft clay, is the cause of the slope of the tower and, although to a lesser extent, of all the buildings in the square. The works resumed in 1275 under the guidance of Giovanni di Simone and Giovanni Pisano, adding another three floors to the previous building. In an attempt to straighten the tower, the three additional floors tend to curve away from the slope. The bell tower was completed in the middle of the following century, adding the belfry.