The triangular square

Piazza Matteotti, Greve in Chianti

Piazza Matteotti, looking south

Greve in Chianti is arguably the liveliest, most interesting and possibly most hospitable town in Chianti, but its square is indubitably the most attractive sight in Greve. Roughly triangular in shape, it is also distinctive for its porticoes around all three sides and the chain of terraces above, from where residents, restaurants and bed and breakfast places enjoy the view.

the beautiful porticoes of Greve: shade in summer and shelter in winter

Where monks still tread

Badia Passignano: the Abbey

Plumb in the middle of the Antinori wine estates in Chianti sits the Abbey of San Michele a Passignano, in its nest of cypresses.


The abbey was founded in 890 and joined the Vallombrosans (a branch of the Benedictine Order), in the 11th century, under the aegis of Saint John Gualbert or San Giovanni Gualberto (for more on his Vallombrosans see a previous post, Of Monks and Forests). The abbey has been renovated several times and resembles more a castle than a monastery. 

the forbidding western bastions of the monastery, softened by caper bushes

Pisa's High Line

Seeing the city from the heights

Since 2018 Pisa has opened to the public a walkway along its ancient city walls. We tried it out recently and recommend it if you have an hour or two to spend in the city and are looking for a novel perspective.

The walkway runs for three kilometres between Torre di Legno Piazza del Rosso, not far from the Arno river, and Piazza dei Miracoli. We highly recommend following it in this direction, as the views of Pisa's most famous monuments are enjoyed best this way. If it is summer, preferably choose the morning, so that you have the sun behind you.

Walking around Villa Vignamaggio

Past, present and future revealed in a Chianti valley
- part one -

Anyone who has seen the 1993 film version of Much Ado about Nothing by Kenneth Branagh, may recall the opening scenes where the male protagonists gallop home across a verdant valley towards the villa in Messina where the play's action takes place. The villa featured splendidly in the film is not in Sicily but in the Comune of Greve in Chianti, a 15 minute drive from Le Ripe: Villa Vignamaggio.

Although the Vignamaggio website includes a cursory (and not entirely accurate) summary of the Villa's interesting history, it excludes its context: the broad, sun-filled valley it dominates. 

How to Build a Farmhouse: an 18th Century Architectural Treatise

Delle Case de' Contadini

Ferdinando Morozzi

1770

...farmhouses can be improved, not for the sake of it, but in order to remove many fatal mistakes, as much for the Farmers' lives as for the damage incurred for the owner who cannot derive profit from his Possessions...therefore I will try to discuss this, setting out rules for building anew, modifying and enlarging pre-existing homes based on experience, and the Authorities of the most serious Writers...

...non poco si possono migliorare di piu' le Case de' Contadini, non per il lusso...ma affine di togliere ...tanti errori..funesti...alla vita de' medesimi Contadini, quanto ancora di pregiudizio notabile all'interesse di chi possiede, che non ricava dalle Possessioni quel frutto compensativo...percio'...io procurero' di discorrere sopra le medesime...esponendo le regole per...edificare di nuovo, e correggere, ed aumentare le gia' fatte le quali cose tutte saranno appoggiate all'esperienza e corredate colle Autorita' de' piu' gravi Scrittori... 
 

Delle case dei contadini, link to book

On Peasants' Houses is the title of this slim volume published in late 18th century Florence by one Ferdinando Morozzi (mentioned in the post on Le Ripe History). The Tuscan case coloniche or farmhouses inhabited by  sharecroppers, but not owned by them, (see the post on Sharecropping in Tuscany) are the typical clusters of rural buildings for which this part of the world is famous. They are often misnamed villas, but villas were the homes of the gentry and nobility, are grander and often surrounded by formal gardens. 
 

restored casa colonica not dissimilar to the one in Morozzi's drawing below: some might erroneously call it a villa but it is really just a wonderful old farmhouse beautified

Case coloniche are the solid, square stone structures where the farmers, the 'peasants' of the past, lived and worked. Arches, dovecotes, external staircases, towers, terracotta grills on the barns for aeration, are regular features; locations vary but tend to be central to the farmland and on an elevation, if available.

Abbadia San Salvatore, on the slopes of Monte Amiata

 A Town Full of Surprises

 

Monte Amiata

It is not where most tourists stop on their way around Monte Amiata in southern Tuscany. Abbadia San Salvatore is a township of 6000 souls on the northern slopes of Tuscany's most easily identifiable mountain. Unassuming and ordinary, it is the sort of place you drive through hurriedly, on your way to somewhere interesting.

And yet we stopped: was it that lunch beckoned, or was it that we noticed a sign proclaiming Abbadia San Salvatore as the home of an ancient Bible? Somehow the quest for lunch and our curiosity combined to make us stop. We would discover that this seemingly dull, grey town held several surprises.

Villa Poggio Torselli

The Queen of Villas and her Garden

Villa Torselli seen from its cypress-lined avenue, a perspective visible when driving along the road from San Casciano north towards Ospitaletto. Apparently dubbed the Queen of Villas (although when and by whom is unclear)

the austere facade is surmounted by terracotta sculptures of the four seasons, a theme reiterated throughout the villa and the leitmotif of the garden, not surprisingly

Yes, that is Florence 8 kilometres to the north and yes, that is the Duomo, barely perceptible right of centre, although to the eye it was quite distinct

Museum of the Works of the Cathedral, Florence

The Latest Reincarnation of the Flower of Florence

overview:

The Romans called Florence Florentia. Since the 11th century the city's crest has been the giglio or lily (fleur-de-lis but in fact a stylised iris). Struck in Florence in 1252, the first commercially important gold coin in Europe was called the fiorino -florin- for this reason, and bore the fiordaliso on its obverse side, with Saint John the Baptist, Florence's patron saint, on the reverse. Florence's imposing and iconic Cathedral (or as it is called here, Duomo), is dedicated to Saint Mary of the Flower while the Baptistery is dedicated to Saint John the Baptist. All this is just a roundabout way of underlining the symbolic potency of the flower to Florence's story.

Sculptures in the brand-new light-filled atrium

Santa Maria del Fiore was commissioned in 1294 by the Commune of Florence to replace Santa Maria Reparata (a church which, in my view, occupied the available space far more appropriately than its successor). Initially the 'Opera' referred to the institution which financed and oversaw the construction of the Duomo; over time the Opera evolved to oversee the Cathedral's continual conservation and decoration and incorporate the Baptistery (completed in 1128), Giotto's Belltower (begun in 1334) and the Museum. 

Palazzo Corsini and the Artisans

Artigianato e Palazzo
 A high-end craft fair in a special setting

the loggia of Palazzo Corsini, a former casinò or hunting lodge which was in fact a villa surrounded by a garden; the many Greek, Latin and Etruscan plaques on the villa wall were collected by an 18th century Corsini

the setting for the annual craft fair: in the 17th century the sculptures were placed on pedestals of decreasing height to give a greater sense of depth and perspective from the loggia. Some of the original sculptures are now housed in the Bargello while others are at either end of the bridge of the Santa Trinità.

one of the barn-like limonaie or lemonaries where 130-plus citrus trees overwinter in their huge terracotta pots

For the past 22 years, each May, in the middle of the month, a unique range of arts and crafts is on display in a unique Florentine location.

the parterre: neat box hedging is filled with sumptuous peonies; teucrium, cistus, roses and lavender abound - recent departures from the original purely baroque setting

The Big Kitchen at the Pitti Palace

A Kitchen for Kings

Before the guided tour to the newly-renovated Medicean Cucinone or Big Kitchen started, there was time to explore the Royal Apartments of the Pitti Palace.

the divine right to luxury

The Royal Apartments are perfect examples of the much-money-little-taste syndrome: magnificent workmanship and raw materials, to be sure, in the brocades, the gilt mouldings around doors and windows, the damask wall coverings, the tassels and fringes and folderols, but the final effect is heavy and ostentatious in the extreme. Buone cose di pessimo gusto as the poet Guido Gozzano wrote.

The Uffizi in Technicolour

Colour and the Evolution of the Uffizi*

Chardin's Boy Building a House of Cards, 1735, now displayed in the Foreign Artists' Gallery at the Uffizi

It is impossible to write a post on the art in the Uffizi Gallery. That is a job a) for more learned people and b) for people with more time on their hands. So I shall offer some thoughts on one aspect of the gallery which is prompted by recent changes: the colour of its walls.

The Castle and Village of Vertine

A Medieval Jewel

 

Vertine seen from the air with its gate tower and castle keep tower and what remains of the curtain wall

The castle of Vertine is first mentioned in a document of 1013. Thus the village of Vertine is over 1000 years old. A statement like this can stagger. As a native of the Antipodes where white settlement goes back a mere 250 years, I am continually staggered, in this part of the world.

the castle keep, today an attractive B&B

Apart from being a castle and village for 1000 years, Vertine can almost certainly claim to have been inhabited over the same period. Not bad for a tiny village which must have seen wars, plague and countless other crises in its long existence.

The Gardens of Villa Marlia near Lucca

The Ups and Downs 
of an 
Historic Garden

It is true that we arrived at Villa Marlia, Capannori, not far from Lucca, on an extremely hot summer's day during an extremely hot and dry summer. Yet our overriding first impression of the gardens was of neglect and decay.This impression was soon softened by splendid perspectives and some truly special gardens and features (the massive topiary hedges and bushes are most striking), but despite these, it is clear that the property has seen better days. It needs some saving.

 a portion of the lawn at Villa Marlia, with its spectacular topiary columns and spheres; one has to imagine the grass as green as per Capability Brown landscaping which it clearly imitates

 

magnificent, tall hedges leading to Clock House

The Sword in the Stone and the Open-Air Abbey

Chiusdino, Montesiepi and  

San Galgano

Chiusdino today

An hour and a half's drive south of Le Ripe, in the Val di Merse, lie several medieval treasures which attract visitors all year round.

reconstruction of Chiusdino as it might have looked between the 12th and 13th centuries, around the time Galgano Guidotti lived there

The medieval nucleus of the hilltop town of Chiusdino, the Hermitage of Montesiepi and the Abbey of San Galgano are linked by their association with a 12th century knight who said farewell to arms in order to become a hermit.

San Galgano, Ambrogio Lorenzetti 1338-49,Sala dei Nove, Palazzo Pubblico Siena

Monte Oliveto Maggiore and Sant'Antimo

The Two Abbeys

If you are travelling south of Siena, to the area known as the Crete Senesi (literally the Sienese Clays), and if you are interested in medieval and renaissance history, art and architecture, you will have to make a stop at the abbeys of Monte Oliveto Maggiore and Sant'Antimo, both founded by the Benedictines.  The abbeys are interesting in themselves for several reasons, but the contrast between the two is also fascinating.

Monte Oliveto sprawls above a clay cliff on a hill south of Asciano. It is a considerable complex of brick buildings; bricks are the material of choice in this area: the clay they are made from is ubiquitous.

Sant'Antimo on the other hand sits cradled in a valley of the river Starcia, surrounded by olives and fields of wheat. It is south of Montalcino, not far from Monte Amiata. Sant'Antimo is partly in ruins and on a much smaller scale than its neighbour. It is built of local travertine and alabaster-onyx.

First to the larger abbey, the working monastery which produces wine, oil, liqueurs, pulses and spelt in its still extensive territory while the monks restore ancient manuscripts.