Fiesole artistic itineraries

Route From Piazza Mino da Fiesole at the convent of San Francesco

Piazza Mino da Fiesole
Always been the fulcrum of the city, on this area in Roman times there was the hole. On it face the main buildings: the Cathedral of San Romolo, the Bishop's palace, the seminary, the church of Santa Maria primeran? Pretorio and the palace.

Cathedral of San Romolo
Built in 1028 and expanded in later centuries, the cathedral is headed to St. Romulus, the patron saint of the city, which preserves the remains in the crypt and other works designed to remember, like the beautiful statue in terracotta, attributed to Giovanni Della Robbia, and the frescoes painted in the late sixteenth century by Nicodemo Ferrucci in fiesole apse. This is just the beginning, many are works here that deserve to be seen, first of all: the great polyptych Bicci Lorenzo in the first half of the fifteenth century, a valuable frontal dated 1273, the St. Sebastian by Perugino and other works of Mino da Fiesole. We can not neglect to visit the chapel Salutati, fifteenth jewel of art, decorated by the sepulchral monument of Bishop Leonardo Salutati and a marble altar.

Finally, before leaving you should go down in the crypt where you can find a table attributed to Domenico Ghirlandaio Madonna and the image of the rescue, valuable work duecentesca.

Turn away Portigiani where we can visit the archaeological area in which they kept important evidence about the origins of Fiesole.

Archaeological Park
In a beautiful landscape dotted with olive trees and cypresses emerge from a distant past the remains of the temple, the spa and theater.

The theater, dating to the I century a. C., was to be richly decorated with marble. His cavea, 34 meters in diameter, returns every summer to accommodate the many spectators who attend the shows of Summer fiesolana.

Built a few years later, the spa still bear witness of the environments that made up the pools, and calidarium frigidarium.

In front stands at the spa 's area sacred, which included two temples with Roman altar, podium and monumental staircase.

Archaeological Museum
There are many exhibits on display, ranging dall'eneolitico up to Lombard.

This stroll through the ancient ruins continues along the Etruscan walls in the street, where are mighty with their five meters in height. Walking in Andrea Costa can be reached via John Dupr? on which there are two museums very different, one fact is mainly addressed to Medieval and fifteenth, the other proposes the graphic of a contemporary artist.

Museo Bandini
Contains collection of canonical Angelo Maria Bandini, which boasts several pieces of exceptional beauty, including the nucleus of icons on the bottom gold, the number of Trionfi Jacopo del Sellaio, the Madonna and Child with an Angel from the workshop of Botticelli and the group of the Della Robbia terracottas.

Museum Trustees and Primo Levi
Deserved tribute to Primo Levi, this museum allows you to admire more than sixty oils and more than one hundred and fifty drawings, belonging to the period between 1911 and 1985, allowing retrace the path of a painter who has joined the personal cultural roots to stimuli arising from the great European art of the twentieth century. In addition, a true gem, that, unlike other museums monographs, this is incorporated in the fourteenth century villa Le Coste who was for many years the 'home of Primo Levi.

At this point we conclude this visit going to St. Francis by reaching one of the most scenic of Fiesole. From a terrace tree Florence offers to our eyes, surrounded by hills whose beauty enchants now many tourists for centuries just like those players famous film Room with a view.

A little earlier you open the square on which were erected in the fourteenth century the church and the convent of San Francesco.

Church and Convent of San Francesco
Headquarters Romite first, then went to the Franciscans who expanded the church convent that was mentioned above St. Bernardino of Siena.

The church, true jewel fifteenth, preserves, among other works, advertisement of Raffaellino of Garbo and the Adoration of the Magi of a painter of the school of Cosimo Rosselli. An arc attributed to Benedict Renaissance Maiano frame by the chorus, frescoed by the end of the sixteenth century with biblical scenes. From the sacristy, in which are placed the works of Baccio Maria Bacci, you enter the chapel of St. Anthony with the beautiful terracotta crib Robbia. Next to the vestry there is a small cloister fifteenth, where the entrance to the missionary ethnographic museum, where materials are gathered from various sources and types. Particularly rich is the section which includes Chinese among other clothes, musical instruments, ivory, porcelain and jade figurines. Interesting is also the section of Egyptian antiquities.

Before exiting stop as did the French writer Albert Camus at the two beautiful cloisters, where you can read on a page suscitategli emotions during his stay in this place of great charm and so imbued with a deep spirituality.