Firenze	Prato	Pistoia	Lucca	Versilia
Pisa	Siena	Arezzo	Golf	Wellness

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Pistoia appears on the scene of ancient Italian cities for its characteristic religious buildings built by architects and workers, who knew how to provide original sculptural and architectural solutions. You only have to walk through the historical centre to see all the Romanesque churches with their typical green and white marbled faces, which are, however, of more distant origins, and whose façades can be considered true “books of stone” for the wealth and variety of decorations and the presence of sculptures and bas-relief architraves over the main doorways by masters who contributed to renovating the city’s appearance in the Middle Ages.
Gruamonte, Enrico and Adeodato left their name, as well as the date of intervention, 1166, on the architrave of the church of Sant’Andrea, where the Magi’s journey probably refers to the theme of the pilgrimage that was “officialised” in Pistoia after 1145, when the chapel of San Jacopo was inaugurated in the Cathedra, with the patron saint’s holy relics.
The Last supper is portrayed, perhaps by the same Gruamonte, on the opposite side of the ancient walled city, on the architrave of the church of San Giovanni Fuorcivitas, where recent restoration work has brought to light rare traces of colour, proving how all bas-reliefs were originally brightly painted. Likewise, an architrave with Jesus entrusting the apostles with the mission stands above the doorway of the church of San Bartolomeo in Pantano. Other masters have left valuable examples of their artwork on Pistoia’s churches, for example on the façade of San Pier Maggiore, or on the Baptistery doorway.
It is always moving to enter these sacred places. Here, the old masters’ art is renewed in the marble pulpits, splendid examples of medieval sculpture, where the role of images is even more evident, to narrate, for those who could not read – which was most of the population - the events of the Old and New Testament. From the pulpit in San Zeno Cathedral, of which only two slabs and a few fragments remain, to the one in the church of San Bartolomeo, in the shop of Guido Bigarelli from Como and in San Giovanni Fuorcivitas by Maestro Guglielmo, we come to the masterpiece by Giovanni Pisano, who made the pulpit in 1301, in the church of Sant’Andrea, achieving excellent results in the harmonious composition of sculpture and architecture.