Pistoia is a beautiful medieval town that lies 67 m. above sea level at the north-western edge of the plain of Florence, near the initial ramifications of the Apennines, approximately 35 km. from the regional capital.
Pistoia is a tourist mixture of history, art, folk traditions, monuments, nature and gastronomic specialities. Among the famous towns in Tuscany, Pistoia shows original claracteristics and it is really worth sighseeing it.

Originally a Roman centre (Pistoria), under the Lombards it became a defensive stronghold and seat of `castaldia'. After a period of rule by bishops, it became a free municipality with a Statute dating back to 1177, one of the oldest in Italy. The 13th century was its period of major prosperity, though this was hindered by constant battles with Florence. In 1306 Pistoia was conquered by the latter and this was the start of its decline. It lost all autonomy and formed part of the Florentine possessions in 1530. It then shared the fortunes of the Grand Duchy until 1859, when it was united with the Kingdom of Italy.

Pistoia is home to buildings and churches from several art periods and the most beautiful of Pisano's pulpits, whose extremely accurate and realistic bas-reliefs anticipated the perfection of the Renaissance statues.

Pistoia has numerous and important monuments: Duomo (12th-13th century, housing terracottas by A. Della Robbia and silver reredos by S. Jacopo, one of the major works of art by Italian silversmiths) with Baptistry (14th century, Gothic) and bell-tower (13th century); Palazzo Pretorio (14th century), Palazzo del Comune (13th-14th century), therefore the characteristic Piazza della Sala, the Hospital del Ceppo and many others.
Cultural Institutions: State Archives, libraries, Capitulary Museum, Civic Museum (paintings of the Tuscan School of 13th-16th centuries). Diocesan Museum, Turati Foundation.

Pistoia is also an important center for the contemporary art; in Pistoia the moon in the well really exists: it is a modern art work by the Florentine artist Gianni Ruffi. The moon in the well, in piazza Giovanni XXXIII, maintains all the characteristics of its creative language: a synthetic, playful and ironic language. Ruffi, pop and popular artist in the true sense of the word, has created various open air installations and many personal exhibits in Pistoia, Florence, Rome, New York, Bologna, Basil, Milan, Munich, Naples, Prato.
Walking around the streets of the city centre you will encounter the reproduction of an ancient well, perhaps of the XV century, in which a crescent moon seems to have fallen by chance. A sculpture, but also a metaphor, a game, the materialisation of an ancient popular saying.
It was a way to create a dialogue in the city between the most modern art and the ancient one: Pistoia, with Prato and Florence, is part of the SMAC (Metropolitan System for Contemporary Art), and for years has been organising exhibitions of great importance such as the Centro di Palazzo Fabroni Arti Visive contemporanee.

Therefore, Pistoia is one of the national centres dedicated to the circulation of what is experimented in art in our times. To liven city spaces, once the city centre was paved, the local administration thought of Ruffi, for his being a top representative of Italian contemporary art and his abundant stays in the city: born in Florence in 1938, self-taught, and formed in the climate of the artistic culture of the '50s through figurative/expressionist experiences.

Surroundings: do not forget that 4 Km far from Pistoia there is the very beautiful Zoological Garden, one of the most complete in all Italy, Montecatini Terme, Monsummano Terme (wellness & spa), Abetone & Cutigliano (winter ski resort, winter sports), Pescia (floriculture), Collodi (Pinocchio’s monumental park).

For those wishing to visit Tuscany, Pistoia is in an ideal position close to all the main tourist centres. These centres can easily be reached by car or train, with the advantage of being in a quiet town surrounded by trees at the foot of the Pistoiese Mountains. Florence can be reached by car in about 20 minutes and Montecatini Terme in 15 minutes.

Every season in Pistoia is perfect for a special stay.

Tuscany is a rich land; visitors are spellbound by its enchanting landscapes and its excellent artistic masterpieces, with splendid examples of culture and history all around. Getting to know Tuscany, however, does not just mean visiting the most well-known and popular places in the region, but it also means taking a deep look at the “beauty all around” in the area that leads you to discover places, which are more hidden, but often even more surprising.

Pistoia, for example, can be a real discovery. It is a city proud of its history and vestiges, which are almost hidden from hasty observers, only revealing themselves fully to those who are willing to devote some time. Its past is reflected in the ancient stones on the roads and in the squares of the centre, in the colour of its architecture, in the wise words of its people and in the strong taste of its food, and visitors can explore a city, which reveals its truer nature, away from the more crowded itineraries.

The landscape is characterised by various features in such a diverse territory: areas that are distinctly more rural, with orchards, olive groves and vineyards alternate with protected areas and natural reserves that include woodlands, forests and marsh areas, where visitors can discover plants and animals of great interest.

The climate is temperate, because the Apennine ridge protects the area from the cold currents coming from the north-east, and the closeness of the sea helps to moderate the hot and cold seasons.

The city from the first to the third circle of walls.

 From above Pistoia still has the appearance of a walled city: the quadrangular perimeter of the medieval walls, made even more imposing by the Medici bastions, betrays its military origins and the bellicosity of its inhabitants, who were constantly engaged in defending their territory contested for the strategic position of the neighbouring Tuscan cities.

If you look carefully at the plan of the roads and the ruins of ancient stones, you can still see the remains of the two concentric circles of wall, which defended the Lombard citadel in centuries gone by and later the free Municipality. In fact, in the thirteenth century, despite being traditionally linked to the economy of farming, the people of Pistoia successfully established flourishing commercial activities, entertaining relations with the whole of the Mediterranean and developing their city so much that they had to extend the defence boundary at least three times.

Walking through the heart of the walled citadel today, across the Cathedral square or nearby suggestive Sala square, it is like regaining a sense of time, a dimension where you can find yourself and recall colours, smells and tastes that have almost been forgotten: in the little streets with their curious names, activities and trades of industrious people resound from a distant past.

Roads and squares of Pistoia

If, “by magic”, we were taken back to Pistoia a few centuries ago, what would we find? Would we still recognise the city? Yes, we probably would, if we stayed in the historic centre, all things considered not much has changed, at least with regard to the city’s basic outlines. We would recognise the Cathedral and Cathedral square, the Town Hall and the Baptistery (which, in the early Middle Ages, was the little church of Santa Maria in Corte); but the bishop’s residence was transformed in the eighteenth century, and the relative building, which seals the southern side of the square, was turned into a private residence. Whereas the northern side, where there is now the Prefecture and Monte dei Paschi, was home to the severe-looking, sixteenth- century, noble building of the Opera di San Jacopo (and nearby a small square that no longer exists with the intriguing name of Pan square) and an incomplete building, where there was an inn popularly known as “Inferno”.

La Sala has not changed; it was, and still is the market centre, with its stone benches that characterise the shops even today, and with the roads nearby, which are still characterised by typical, historical names: via del Lastrone, because there was a large stone where they sold “il pescio” (fish), as it is written in a document; via di Stracceria, where old clothes and rags were hung out; via del Cacio, via dei Cipollini. Nearby, you could find the tables of the most well-known inns: Leone’s (there is still an alley with this name), Tina’s, in via della Nave and Serena’s, in via della Posta Vecchia.

One hotel was known for being able to offer the comfort of water in the room, in the sense that those who stayed there could lower a bucket from the window using a special pulley and fill up from the well below: and the street behind the Cathedral is still called via dell’Acqua. Some roads or suburbs bore the name of ancient trades: the suburb of Soppedanieri (now via Crispi) was home to the makers of chests, trunks and cabinets, which were once called soppedani (from the Latin sub pedes, because they were kept at the foot of the bed and contained the brides’ trousseau), the suburb of Galigheria, where galighe or shoes were made; via degli Speziali, dei Barbieri, dei Setaioli, degli Orafi and dei Fabbri, at the end of which – in the church of San Michele in Bonaccio, which no longer exists and which was later deconsecrated – the factory of the celebrated surgical instruments of Pistoia was established. In what is now piazza degli Ortaggi (or Sala nuova, because it was added to the old one) there was the “convenient place” of the brothel, where prostitutes ran their business.

But for less rushed and more refined pleasures, you could go to the “stufe” or public baths, where you could find pleasant female company, as well as hot water. Everyone soaked in great tubs, through which an axis was set with tempting delicacies placed on top: it is better not to investigate what happened under the water… There is still a via della Stufa in the city; but the name amusingly given to what was once the most well-known house has gone: via del Pizzicore, because men went there with that particular itch.

It is truly a shame that some old moralistic administrator changed its name to via Puccinelli. Behind the Madonna dell’Umiltà runs Brontola alley: according to a persistent popular tale, the name was chosen because of the two old grumblers, who lived there; however, it is more correct to say that it was because of the wind, which makes a constant murmuring sound when it blows into the bottleneck roads.

Cathedral square, the ancient heart of the city

Over the centuries, Cathedral square in Pistoia has preserved its role as the city’s main centre, with its historical buildings still used for the main functions of social life: even today the Cathedral, Town Hall and Court serve their original purpose, and the square is just as animated as it was, a thousand years ago, by the bustling market, which takes place every Wednesday and Saturday morning. Coming along the narrow Via degli Orafi, the square appears in all its beauty.

The old belltower, in the middle, rises over 66 metres and constitutes the heart around which all of the other monumental buildings are arranged. It is worth the effort of climbing the 200 steps just for the splendid view you can admire at the top. The bell-tower is aligned with the façade of San Zeno Cathedral, which existed back in 923 and which was rebuilt and extended in the 12th Century and transformed over the centuries. Inside, ancient Romanesque structures blend with Baroque and Renaissance work and with the complete decorative after-thought of the apse part, which was finished in the mid-nineteenth century.

The precious silver altar of the old chapel, which was dedicated to the Patron Saint Jacopo in 1145 and destroyed in 1786, still stands; this magnificent work by goldsmiths was completed over the centuries, in various phases, between 1287 and 1456, by goldsmiths from Pistoia and Florence, including the young Filippo Brunelleschi, who later designed the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, and who made several small, intense sculptures portraying the Prophets, pre-announcing the great expressive power, which was to characterise the most celebrated work of one of the greatest geniuses of the Renaissance period.

Among the precious works kept in the Cathedral we must also include the Crucifixion painted by Coppo di Marcovaldo and his son Salerno di Coppo, and the monument to Cardinal Forteguerri, which was completed in the eighteenth century and designed and partially created by Andrea Verrocchio, Leonardo da Vinci’s master.

Verrocchio and his studio also made Bishop Donato de’ Medici’s tombstone in the Pappagalli Chapel, to the left of the apse, where there is a sophisticated painting of the Madonna di Piazza that was completed around 1485 by Lorenzo di Credi, who, like Leonardo, was also one of Verrocchio’s apprentices. Next to the Cathedral stands the old Bishops’ Palace, which was the bishop’s residence until 1786; today it is the site of the museum and representative office of the Cassa di Risparmio di Pistoia e Pescia. To the south of Cathedral square, where the religious buildings stand, the elegant Gothic Baptistery of San Giovanni in Corte makes a fine show with its precious bi-chrome marble covering.

The Baptistery, which was built in the middle of the fourteenth century by Cellino di Nese, perhaps according to Nicola Pisano’s design, has an octagonal plan and a truncated pyramid roof, surmounted by a lantern decorated with spires and pinnacles. The entrance doorway is wonderfully decorated and surmounted by bas-reliefs and statues. Inside you can see a rare immersion christening font by Lanfranco da Como, dating back to 1226, from the old Baptist church of Santa Maria, which stood on the site of the Baptistery.

To the north of the square, the Town Hall and Palazzo Pretorio stand opposite the buildings that symbolise civil power. The first, also known as Palazzo degli Anziani, was built after the end of the thirteenth century and enlarged in the 14th Century. Its current appearance still preserves the severe forms in keeping with the place of power, where the Magistracy of the Elders assembled, the Gonfaloniers of Justice and then the Podestà. On the façade, besides the Medici family’s coat of arms surmounted by the insignia of Pope Leone X, there is also the black marble head of Musetto II, the king of Majorca, who was defeated in the Balearic war, between 1113 and 1115, by Grandonio de’ Ghisilieri, a captain from Pistoia, to whom the mace refers. Besides still being the city’s administrative centre, the Palazzo is home to the Civic Museum and the Giovanni Michelucci Documentation Centre.

Palazzo Pretorio or Palazzo del Podestà, which was built after 1367, owes its present appearance to the expansion in 1845. The inner courtyard is particularly interesting with its frescoed vaults and walls decorated with the numerous coats of arms of podestà, custody captains, commissioners and governors, who performed their duties in the Palazzo from the Middle Ages until 1816, when the magistracy was abolished and the building became used as a Court building.

To the left of the entrance the bench is preserved with three orders of steps, and the great stone table where justice was administered. On the north-eastern side of the square you can still see evidence of the medieval city: Catilina tower, perhaps an ancient watch tower from the nearby bastion of the first circle of walls, takes its name from the famous Roman condottiere, who, according to Sallustio, died in battle near Pistoia.

There is a building in front of Catilina tower with a green and white marble wall face, where you can still see traces of the ancient church of Santa Maria Cavaliera. The church, of early Middle Age origins, was probably called “cavaliera” because the knights’ investiture ceremony took place here. It was rebuilt in the 13th century and completely transformed into a civil residence after 1783.

The colours of the Middle Ages

 White and green: these are the colours of architecture in Pistoia in the Middle Ages. Towards the end of the 11th Century, the whole of Tuscany was overwhelmed by the desire for polychromy, a characteristic of Pisa and Lucca Romanesque, which took on its own special, clear features in Pistoia similar to Mozarabic architecture. The use of two colours, on the façades of the city’s most important Romanesque churches, created with precious white Carrara marble, or travertine from Monsummano Terme, and serpentine green from Prato, becomes gradually more complex taking on increasingly more distinct features.

From the façades of the churches of Sant’Andrea, San Bartolomeo and San Pier Maggiore, where the geometric bi-chrome marble decorations highlight the architectural structures, you come to the extravagant geometries of the side-façade of the church of San Giovanni Fuorcivitas where colour becomes a genuine protagonist, exploding in an imaginative and precious horizontal marble weaving, so that the insistent green and white stripes conceals and almost cancels out the architectural divisions.

 White and green engulf the façade of the Cathedral in Cathedral Square, and the ancient steps of the Bishops’ Palace, which were later incorporated into the brick face, on the front of the old little church of Santa Maria Cavaliera, which has now been transformed into a civil building, and on the end of the bell-tower, triumphing again in the Gothic Age, with the awe-inspiring, refined face of the baptistery of San Giovanni in Corte, enriched with bas-reliefs, drips and spires.

On the road to Santiago

San Jacopo, whose real name was Giacomo Maggiore, Jesus’ favourite apostle, has been the patron saint of Pistoia since 1145, when Bishop Atto officially inaugurated the chapel, in the Cathedral to house the relic that had come to the city from Santiago de Compostela, in Galicia, one of the holiest places of Christianity, where the saints remains lie. As proof of the important role taken on by the city as a stopping-off point along the Compostela pilgrimage route, the Opera di San Jacopo financed the construction of the majestic silver altar dedicated to San Jacopo, which was completed in various phases and makes a fine show in San Zeno Cathedral even today.
A visit to the places of Jacopo worship in Pistoia takes us along the museum routes in the Bishops Palace, where there is the silver shrine of San Jacopo by Lorenzo Ghiberti, the famous artist, who made two bronze doors for the Florentine Baptistery. Here, among the many works of art, including the Cathedral’s valuable treasures, you can admire a fresco depicting the blessing of the pilgrims setting off on their way to Santiago.
The figure of San Jacopo also appears in several paintings in the nearby Civic Museum, sometimes represented as an apostle or, more frequently, in pilgrim’s clothing, wearing a large hat, called a “galero”, with a small cloak or “pellegrina” over his shoulders and a “bordone”, which was useful for striking those with evil intentions, in his hand for support and protection along the way, as well as the shell, known as the “comb of San Jacopo”, which was pinned to his clothes to symbolise the completion of the journey of faith. After exploring the places and memories of Jacopo, us modern pilgrims too can allow ourselves to stop off in one of the centre’s many cake shops and maybe take the opportunity to sample Pistoia’s comfits, a modern version of the handful of moist sugar that was given to the exhausted travellers on reaching the city: sweet little balls with an aniseed centre, anici confecti, which also appeared on the breakfast menu offered by the bishop on the occasion of the celebrations in honour of the patron saint, which is officially celebrated on 25 July.

The “Della Robbia family” in Pistoia

The sixteenth-century frieze in glazed ceramic, a brightly coloured “ribbon” that decorates the open gallery of the old Ceppo Hospital is one of the symbols of the city. The bas-relief with seven great panels illustrates the Seven Works of Mercy with crowded scenes portraying figures with strongly characterised gestures and faces. The creator of the first six scenes is Santi Buglioni from Florence, a descendent of Benedetto Buglioni, who accomplished the lunette above the doorway of the nearby oratorio with the Coronation of the Virgin in blue and white glazed terracotta. However, the panel that shows the scene Giving the thirsty a drink, the end one to the right of the façade, was added by Filippo Paladini, probably because the original was lost, fragments of which are preserved in the Surgical Instruments Hall inside the Hospital.
In the pendentives of the arches the decoration also includes medallions by Giovanni della Robbia, an illustrious representative of the famous dynasty of Florentine artists; three of them show scenes dedicated to the Virgin and others show the coats of arms of the Florentine hospital, the Ceppo, the Medici family and the city of Pistoia.
We can follow a perfect “della Robbia” itinerary through the city’s streets that takes us to the old church of San Giovanni Fuorcivitas, where the white ceramic group, of extraordinary formal refinement, is preserved, portraying the Visitation, with the Madonna and Saint Elisabeth in a tender embrace.
It is the oldest work in glazed terracotta by Luca della Robbia, one of the most illustrious protagonists of fifteenth- century Florence. Whereas his nephew Andrea created the lunette with the Madonna and Child and Angels on the central doorway, with the relative intrados decorated with lacunars and swags, under the open gallery in the Cathedral.

Ceppo Hospital and the school of surgery

Ceppo Hospital is one of the most representative institutions in Pistoia. It is where people have always found warmth and care and was founded in 1277 at the wish of a couple of merchants. Here, even during the most dramatic moments of the city’s long history, during plagues, wars or famine, religious men and laymen were dedicated to looking after the sick, the poor, orphans and pilgrims from all of those refuges that are represented so well in the frieze in the open gallery. Over the course of time, many benefactors have contributed to the development of this institute, which is well symbolised by the “ceppo”, a hollow section of tree trunk where the people used to collect offerings to maintain the structure in the Middle Ages.
From the seventeenth century, Ceppo Hospital also became the site of a prestigious medical- surgical school. Subsequently, the surgical orientation prevailed over the medical orientation and between 1770 and 1780 it became necessary to build a new anatomy room, designed as a true “anatomical theatre” which was to be used for practical and theory lessons following the example of other hospitals and universities.
The small room, which is situated in a building in the hospital garden, is an oval-shaped amphitheatre with an anatomical table made of marble in the centre and two rows of benches at the sides for students attending the lessons. The walls are decorated with frescoes and stucco work portraying geometric patterns spaced out by several medallions showing portraits of illustrious doctors. The school was finally suppressed in 1844 and the anatomy room was closed and almost forgotten about until recently, when this little architectural gem was returned to the city after pain-staking restoration work.
Ceppo Hospital has a special, valuable collection of surgical instruments dating back to between the 17th and 19th century, which are displayed in the “Filippo Pacini” Medical Academy Hall. Of these, the scalpels, surgical instruments “par excellence”, which seem to have been invented in Pistoia, are particularly important. Indeed, according to sources, Pistorienses gladii, in other words daggers with a short, double-edged blade and thin, sharp knives, also called “pistolesi” and “pistorini” respectively were made in the Middle Ages. The word “bisturino” derived from “pistorino”, as well as the French “bisturì”.
Again in the nineteenth century, Palmerini workshop, in central Via dei Fabbri was renowned and valued, abroad too, for manufacturing steel and surgical instruments, an activity that was preserved until 1886.

Pulpits and architraves

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.

The Baroque season

Between the end of the seventeenth and eighteenth century, Pistoia underwent a flourishing artistic season, when noble buildings, residences and churches were renovated and re-modernised in keeping with the new late Baroque and Rococo style, which was fashionable at the time in the Medici court in neighbouring Florence, the capital of the Grand duchy of Tuscany. Following the new trend, buildings and furnishings were renewed in Pistoia with pastel colours, frivolous decorations and frequently profane subjects and delicate white and gold stuccowork designed to reflect the sparkling torch-lights and mirrors in the elegant residences of Pistoia’s nobility.
Some traces of the splendour of these precious surroundings can still be seen in private buildings in Pistoia, for example in Palazzo Amati Cellesi, which is today the site of a bank institute, in Piazza Garibaldi, or Palazzo Marchetti, in via Curtatone and Montanara, and in various religious buildings, which are worth a visit to breathe in some of that atmosphere.
You are particularly advised to visit the Carmine church in the square of the same name, which has recently been restored and returned to its ancient splendour, and the small church of San Leone, which is today used to hold exhibitions, as well as the church of the Santissima Annunziata and, in particular, the church of Saints Prospero and Philip, a real eighteenth- century “theatre” with its liturgical representation that is completely painted inside with glimpses of sky in the background and hosts of saints looking down from soft clouds. From the main door in the little square, to the left of the ecclesiastical building, some steps leads to an incredibly beautiful area right above the church hall: this is the Capitolare Fabroniana Library, a place where time seems to have stopped and where the precious wood-panelling and bookshelves that surround the great reading hall, on two levels, house the rich collection of ancient manuscripts and books that were donated to the church in the first half of the eighteenth century by cardinal Carlo Agostino Fabroni from Pistoia, who did this to show his affection for his home town, in no way obscured by his brilliant career at the Roman curia.

Clemente IX Rospigliosi - Pistoia's Pope

Among its many boasts Pistoia can also claim to being the birthplace of a pope, Clement IX, whose real name was Giulio Rospigliosi, and whose greatest sin was to reach the Eternal Father too soon, in 1669, after just one and a half years as pope. Despite this, Pope Clement had many merits for his home town, which, thanks to his patronage and rich and noble family, witnessed a flourishing Baroque season in the mid-17th Century and, amongst other things, the arrival in the city of the capital’s most famous and fashionable artists.
A privileged place for this true Baroque explosion was Spirito Santo Square, in the centre, where there is the building, which was the residence of the Pope’s Rospigliosi family, at the entrance to Via del Duca, where Giulio lived from his early childhood until he left for Rome. Right here in this square, where there is a splendid view of the magnificent dome of the Basilica dell’Umiltà, the generosity of the Rospigliosi family’s contribution was confirmed by the building of the church with its annexed college for the Jesuit Fathers that was dedicated to their founder Saint Ignazio of Loyola.
Although it is not particularly striking on the outside, because it was left without a façade, the church, which is today dedicated to the Holy Spirit, is well worth a visit: it is a true gem of Roman Baroque architecture, elegantly set in the medieval fabric of the ancient city. It was built with the collaboration of figures of the standing of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, who created the great colonnade in Saint Peter’s Square in Rome, and Pietro Berrettini from Cortona, aided by a team of artists from Tuscany, who certainly knew how to interpret the needs of Roman Baroque architecture.

Let’s go to the Museum

 Pistoia’s museum network includes interesting exhibition itineraries, which are advantageously distributed over a very small area. This means you can easily visit several museums on the same day and create specific, personalised itineraries. In Cathedral square, the Town Hall and the Old Bishops’ Palace represent the most important centres for Pistoia’s collections, which are completed by the exhibitions in Palazzo Rospigliosi della Ripa del Sale, just a few metres from the square. But let’s proceed in order: the Civic Museum is the city’s main museum that unwinds through the rooms on the first floor, the mezzanine and the second floor of the Town Hall and includes the most important examples of art in Pistoia, from the Fourteenth to the Twentieth Century.

You can admire works from the city and area’s churches and convents in the museum, as well as the collections donated by the benefactor from Pistoia, Niccolò Puccini. Material from the Giovanni Michelucci Documentation Centre is displayed in the mezzanine, with drawings, plastic models and projects by Pistoia’s famous architect from Pistoia An interesting archaeological itinerary unwinds through the underground passages of the Old Bishops’ Palace, the historical home of the bishop from the 11th to the 18th Century, where you can read the stratigraphy of the excavations and see the many finds that were brought to light during the restoration work carried out on the building.

The building was taken over in the twentieth century, in the seventies, by the Cassa di Risparmio di Pistoia e Pescia, which has assigned many of the restored areas for the treasures of the Cathedral and the Opera di San Jacopo. A visit to the Cathedral Museum will give you the chance to admire precious works by goldsmiths, including the shrine of San Jacopo by Lorenzo Ghiberti, and the rare sacred paraments and liturgical furnishings, as well as being a real journey into the past, through secret places filled with mystery, like the “sagrestia de’ belli arredi” (sacristy of beautiful furnishings), the scene of the shameful theft by Vanni Fucci, which cost the people of Pistoia their everlasting reputation as sacrilegious thieves thanks to Dante Alighieri’s verses (Inf. XXV).

The museum itinerary also includes modern works: amongst which is a Pomona by Marino Marini and the cycle of wall paintings from the villa in Pistoia of Giovanni Boldini, the famous painter from the circle of impressionists. Going down from Cathedral Square along the Ripa del Sale, to the right of the Town Hall, you find the sixteenth-century Palazzo Rospigliosi della Ripa, the site of the Clemente Rospigliosi Museum, the New Diocesan Museum and the Lacework Museum.

The building belonged to a branch of the family, which was only distantly related to Pope Clement IX, but legend has it that during a visit to Pistoia, the pope slept in the great fourposter bed decorated with red damask that dominates one of the rooms of the apartments on the first floor.

Rospigliosi Museum has its own unique charm, because it not only preserves the family’s beautiful seventeenth-century picture gallery, but also the original, precious furnishings and tapestries. And so, walking through the rooms in the building is a little like plunging into the domestic atmosphere of a noble residence about three hundred and fifty years ago. The New Diocesan Museum is set up in the rooms next to those of Rospigliosi Museum and preserves sacred paraments, devotional sculptures, gold and liturgical objects mainly from parish churches in the area of the diocese. Finally, some of the rooms on the ground floor in the same building house the Lacework Museum, paying tribute to the tradition of our province’s prestigious handicraft, where this particular activity has been handed down through the generations and still represents a precious resource for the local economy. And finally, a few minutes walk from Cathedral Square, in Corso Silvano Fedi, you can visit the Marino Marini Foundation Museum, dedicated to the sculptures, graphics and paintings of this illustrious man from Pistoia.

The museum is particularly unique, because it is set up in the old Sant’Antonio Abate or Tau Convent, which has been restored, in keeping with modern times, as a multi-purpose space. The museum also has a café and a small bookshop.

Spaces for contemporary art

 Without ever renouncing its prestigious medieval past, over the past decades Pistoia has also opened up to the development and promotion of contemporary art, particularly working to increase and valorise the artistic experience of local talents. In a short space of time, in the historic centre too, the city has seen several places flourishing, which skirt the areas of the old city in a typically discrete manner. So we must not be surprised if a Luna nel Pozzo by Gianni Ruffi dominates Piazza Giovanni XXIII, in front of the monumental façade of the Ceppo Hospital, or if the bronze blindfolded figures by Roberto Barni are displayed in a circle in the square called Piazzetta dell’Ortaggio: these are just timid, innovative appearances on the historical scene.

Other places are used for authentic contemporary art exhibitions: first and foremost the eighteenth-century Palazzo Fabroni in via Sant’Andrea, which is used to hold temporary exhibitions and cultural and didactic activities, as well as the permanent contemporary art collection and the Pistoia modern and contemporary art documentation centre, set up in conjunction with the Council, the Province of Pistoia and the Cassa di Risparmio di Pistoia e Pescia with the aim of preserving and ordering documentation on twentieth-century artists from Pistoia, promoting awareness with personal and thematic exhibitions.

Another particularly beautiful place of art is the studio house of Fernando Melani, a versatile abstractionist, who lived and worked for a long time in a small apartment in corso Gramsci, which the Council has renovated, keeping it intact, with works displayed in every room and piles of newspapers stacked on the stairs, just as “Nando” had left them. You can visit the studio in small groups on appointment. In Felceti, the studio house of the master from Pistoia, Jorio Vivarelli, is home to the Foundation with collections of sculptures, graphics and drawings.

Another interesting itinerary of contemporary art set up recently unwinds in the garden of Ceppo Hospital, on the side looking out onto Carmine Square, where the new pavilion for haemodialysis contains works by famous masters, such as Sol LeWitt, Robert Morris, Dani Karavan, Claudio Parmiggiani, Higetoshi Nagasawa and Gianni Ruffi both inside and outside.

These internationally famous artists are also included in the prestigious Gori collection in Celle di Santomato, between Pistoia and Prato, where the owner, Giuliano Gori has set up his own personal “open space” art exhibition, which attracts and enchants enthusiasts from all over the world, along the fascinating paths of a great romantic park and in the beautiful surroundings of the eighteenth-century Fabroni villa and its annexes.

Celle villa is often used for events and displays that are set up, from time to time, in the spaces for art or the open-air theatre in the garden. Just outside Pistoia you can visit a unique contemporary art museum set up in Castagno, a village of medieval origins, which, along its small roads, bays, open galleries and house façades, contains a series of paintings and sculptures that were completed between 1975 and 1980 by artists such as Mino Maccari, Quinto Martini, Venturino Venturi, Jorio Vivarelli and Antonio Bueno. The works are arranged without any precise order, so the spectator s t u m - bles across them by chance, perceiving them almost as a personal discovery.

Just outside Pistoia

The Puccini Garden in Scornio

Puccini Garden originally spread about 123 hectares around the eighteenth-century “Villone” of Scornio, the Puccini family’s summer residence in the countryside of Pistoia, two kilometres outside the ancient Porta al Borgo. Preparations for the garden started around 1820 and continued for the whole of the first half of the century, at the wish of the Pistoia family’s last son, Niccolò Puccini, known as “the hunchback of Scornio”, who devoted his life to the grand project of the Romantic park, where nature and man combined to create suggestive scenes with little lakes, classical ruins and medieval towers and castles.

46 “monuments” were scattered along the garden paths – buildings, statues, columns and numerous epigraphs – bearing educational, patriotic, moral and celebratory messages. After Niccolò Puccini’s death, in accordance with his will, the property in Scornio was split up and auctioned and the profits from the sale were donated to charity.

Today, in spite of alterations, decay or the disappearance of various monuments, it is still possible to see the garden complex from the main buildings: the ruins of the temple of Pythagoras on the island in the centre of the Lake, the Pantheon of illustrious men, the Gothic Castle, the Gothic Temple, Catilina Tower, as well as many statues and epitaphs scattered along the paths. The villa, which now belongs to the Council, is the site of the “Teodulo Mabellini” Music School.

The Zoological Garden of the city of Pistoia

On the gentle hills that surround the city to the north, just two kilometres from the centre, we are greeted by the unusual and amazing sight of Pistoia’s Zoological Garden, which covers an area of 75,000 square metres, surrounded by dense vegetation of oaks, pines and tropical plants. It is one of the most famous and modern zoos in Italy and is home to over six hundred animals from all over the world. Pistoia’s Zoological Garden, which is constantly being developed and modernised, is increasingly establishing itself internationally as a modern centre for the preservation of biodiversity.

Thanks to international breeding programmes, the zoo works with other institutes around the world to preserve populations of species at risk of extinction and, when possible, promote their reintroduction into nature.

In the zoological garden you can many admire animals, even the rarest and most fascinating ones, from the mighty tiger and majestic jaguar to the agile Ugandan giraffe and the ring-tailed Madagascan lemur, and species like the great reticulated python in the reptile house.

Part of the zoo is dedicated to domestic species, where there are special activities for children, who can relate to the animals at leisure and take part, under the supervision of expert personnel, in biodiversity laboratories and educational programmes to discover the fascinating world of nature.

Pistoia's outskirts

Thermal Spas

Montecatini and Monsummano are two well-known thermal resorts just a few kilometres from Pistoia. The latest beauty and bodily health techniques are used in the diverse centres with treatments involving waters that possess special therapeutic properties.

Free time and sports

Pistoia is a place to live all year round. The Apennines that frame the city offer a setting where art and nature combine extremely well. In summer, a vast network of paths and roads enable horse-riding, mountain-biking and trekking enthusiasts to discover the suggestive mountainous and hilly countryside, or you can try your hand at canoe sailing and sport fishing in the torrents and little lakes. In winter, the Pistoia Apennines transform into a white paradise where Nordic skiing, snowboarding, carving and skiing enthusiasts can venture upon ever new routes. Abetone is the heart of the skiing district and the most important winter sports resort in Central Italy, known and admired all over the world for the beauty and variety of its slopes, and the glory of its great champions, like Zeno Colò, Celina Seghi and Vittorio Chierroni.

Over 80 kilometres of slopes, many of which have artificial snow and lighting for night skiing, are distributed over four splendid valleys that are connected to each other by numerous lifts: ski-lifts, cable cars, chair lifts, cableways and also several baby-lifts for the younger ones and beginners.

Events of great national and international importance are held on the slopes of Pistoia’s white Apennine circuit: there is the “Coppa Europa”, “Coppa Foemina”, “Master”, “Carving Cup” and “Pinocchio sugli Sci”, a true world skiing championship for youngsters aged 8 to 15 years old, which launched great champions like Deborah Compagnoni, Isolde Kostner, Lara Magoni, Jure Kosir, Mario Reiter, Hurska Hrovat and many others. In spring there is the Pistoia- Abetone race.

Sports facilities

Pistoia and its territory offer visitors many opportunities to enjoy themselves at various sports facilities: football and fivea- side football pitches, tennis courts, multi-purpose courts for volleyball and basketball, an athletics track, skating rinks and several gyms.

Pistoia has a stadium and a leisure centre, indoor and outdoor swimming pools and a firing ground. Enthusiasts can play golf, a few kilometres from Pistoia, in Monsummano Terme, at one of the most important and interesting 18-hole golf courses, even on a competitive level.

The area of Pistoia can also be explored on mountain bikes, which are the ideal way to discover the characteristic corners of the city and surrounding area. There are several stables in the area and you can organise trips on horseback along the many routes immersed in nature that surround the city, stopping off at characteristic places, rich in art and culture, where you can maybe sample the local products.

Whereas for those who love cars, Pistoia offers several special events, such as, for example the Abeti Rally and the Lima- Abetone car race.

PERETOLA FLORENCE AIRPORT

Switchboard: +39.055.3061300

Lost & Found Office: +39.055.3061302

Company Secretary: +39.055.30615

Website: www.aeroporto.firenze.it/EN/index.php

Florence Airport ("Aeroporto di Firenze") or Amerigo Vespucci Airport (Airport Code - IATA: FLR, ICAO: LIRQ) is an airport located close to Florence, Italy. It is one of two main airports in the Tuscany region, the other being Galileo Galilei Airport in Pisa.

There are train and bus links between this airport and Florence, and the train line provides shuttle runs between the airport and the final station which is Florence city terminal. Tickets are available in the airport and must be validated prior to boarding the train (by inserting the ticket into the small stamping machines on the terminal), otherwise an on the spot fine is reliably served.

PISA INTERNATIONAL Airport

Toll-free number: 800 018849

Flight Information: +39 050 849300

Tourist Information Desk: +39 050 503700.

Left Luggage Service: +39.050 849300

Website:www.pisa-airport.com

Galileo Galilei International Airport (Airport Code - IATA: PSA, ICAO: LIRP) is an airport located in Pisa, Italy. It is one of the two main airports in Tuscany, together with Peretola Airport in Florence. It is named after Galileo Galilei, a famous scientist and native of Pisa.

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