IL PIANO
Welcome to à Bienvenues
Colle Join the students, discover the city!
a project of Istituto San Giovanni Bosco
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page I
Welcome
page II
The History
Il Piano
The Castle Borgo di Santa Caterina
1. Arnolfo’s Square 2. Red Bank 3. Santa Maria Assunta a Spugna 4. Santa Maria del Renaio 5. Don Gnocchi Building 6. Boschi Area - Old Paper Mill 7. Crystal Museum 8. Square-Church & Cloister of Sant’Agostino 9. Four Cantons 10. Headquarter of the Choir Bellini 11. The Elevator & The Bastion 12. Palazzo Masson
13. Dante’s Epigraph 14. Arnolfo’s Tower 15. Santa Maria in Canonica 16. Teatro dei Varii 17. The Alley 18. Palazzo dei Priori 19. The Smile’s Fountain 20. The Crypt of Mercy 21. The Cathedral Square & Via delle Volte 22-23. Colle di Val D’elsa Cathedral 24. Palazzo Luci 25. Bastion of Sapia 26. The Voice Weakens 27. Bacìo Park 28. Palazzo Campana
29. The Church of Santa Caterina 30. The Oratory of the Company of the Cross 31. Baios Square 32. Torrione 33. ‘Untitled’, Marisa Merz 34. The Convent of S.Francis 35. Porta Nuova 36. Palazzo San Lorenzo 37. San Pietro Museum 38. Il Palazzone
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Welcome to Colle di Val D’elsa Colle di Val d’Elsa is a hilltop town in the province of Siena with a population of 21,264 inhabitants. The town is also the birth place of Arnolfo di Cambio, Italian architect and sculptor born in 1240, to whom the main square is dedicated. Today Colle is famous worldwide for the production of Crystal glassware. Colle’s economy is diversified with a strong tertiary sector. Tourism is thriving thanks to its historical centre and strategic position in the centre of Tuscany, and its vicinity to some important destinations like Siena, Florence, San Gimignano and Volterra. In the past the main activity was agriculture, today it is also enriched by the growing country house tourism. Thanks to its position along Via Francigena, since the 12th to the 13th century Colle developed economically and a lot of paper factories and other manufacturing activities bloomed. They were operated by the so-called “gore”, that is artificial canals powered by the water of the river Elsa. These canals, which still exist today, facilitated the development of every industrial activity until some decades ago. During the Medicean period, the production of wool became less important, and agriculture developed thank to the reclamation of the lands and the use of those that once were reserved to pasture. The paper industry was very important, both economically and culturally. In Colle every kind of book was printed since 1400: for more than two centuries some paper factories had the regional monopoly of the production of the stamped paper for payment of a tax. As time progressed the number of paper factories gradually reduced, especially by the elimination of privileges. At the beginning of the second half of 1900, the production of paper was supplanted by iron and glass industries. In 1820 François Mathis founded the first glassmaker of the Modern age, while in 1855 Stefano Masson, a savoyard settled in Colle, founded Masson Ironworks. The town became one of the most important industrial centres of Tuscany. For the importance of this sector, the Crystal Museum has been founded, the only one in Italy.
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INTRO
The History Given to the presence of Etruscan findings dating back to the 7th century b.C., and currently exhibited in Ranuccio Bandinelli Archeological Museum, Colle was probably born under this ancient civilization which thrived mainly in Tuscany and in high Lazio long before the Roman occupation. During the Middle Ages, Colle di Val d’Elsa played a significant role in the rivalry between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. This internecine struggle was an important aspect of political power of medieval Italy. In Colle the Guelphs, gravitating more towards the Guelph Florence since 1267, had been able to expel the Ghibellines, allied with the Ghibelline Siena. So, Colle became an important centre of the Guelph’s forces, thanks to its advanced position in the territory of Siena. In June 1269 the battle of Colle took place between the Sienese Ghibellines and the Guelphs forces of Charles of Anjou and Florence. This victory changed the fate of Colle forever Over the centuries Colle has become a more and more industrialized town, thanks to the birth and the improvement of iron industry as well as the glass and crystal production which still characterizes today’s town’s economy. Unfortunately, during the first and the second world war, the city was heavily bombed but despite this, it continued progressing. Today the city is divided into two parts: the lower part, known as IL PIANO, which is more industrialised and has many more facilities, and the upper part or COLLE ALTA, the most ancient one.
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IL PIANO
Il Piano Arnolfo’s Square Red Bank Santa Maria Assunta a Spugna Santa Maria del Renaio Don Gnocchi Building Boschi Area - Old Paper Mill Crystal Museum Square-Church & Cloister of Sant’Agostino Four Cantons Headquarter of the Choir Bellini The Elevator & The Bastion Palazzo Masson
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1.
Arnolfo’s Square
The medieval urban organisation is reflected in today’s layout of the town which is divided into Colle Bassa, a manufacturing centre, and Colle Alta, rich in artistic landmarks. In the centre of Colle Bassa there is a wide porticoed square dedicated to the famous architect, sculptor and native son of Colle Arnolfo di Cambio. Its creation dates back to 1865 when the first municipal Administration of Colle was looking for a new space to be assigned to a marketplace and fair; the right area was found in the old ‘“Pian dei Canali” (a plain area that got its name from the canals about one meter in width and depth which bring Elsa’s waters to Colle) since it would have permitted the creation of buildings with porches around the square and access roads. For the realization of the square, part of the old city walls and the 13th-century Church of San Jacopo were knocked down.
Noteworthy today in the square is the old train station now a pharmacy. In front of it there is the big fountain by Daniel Buren that is part of the urban space redevelopment intervention coordinated by the architect Jean Nouvel that involved four artists: Lewis Baltz worked on the rediscovery and enhancement of the canals along Via Mazzini; Daniel Buren took care of the pavement. What is left unfinished are the details curated by Bertrand Lavier, his urban decoration and the porches planned with colored canopies that mark the arches, and by Alessandra Tesi for the lighting and vaults. On the opposite side there’s the monument for the Fallen of WWI, created by the sculptor, Mario Sabbatelli, officially inaugurated on November 4 1925 by King Vittorio Emanuele III.
Arnolfo di Cambio Arnolfo di Cambio, also known as Arnolfo di Lapo, was born in 1245 in Colle di Val d’Elsa. He was a sculptor, an architect and an urbanist that worked mostly in Rome and Florence at the end of the 12th and at the beginning of the 13th century. His greatest work is certainly the architectural designing of the cathedral of “Santa Maria del Fiore ”. He was also the architect of Palazzo Vecchio the Florentine Town Hall. As a sculptor he made the pulpit of Siena Cathedral and the monument to De Braye in Orvieto as well as other works for Orvieto’s Cathedral.
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IL PIANO
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Red Bank
Built according to the design of Giovanni Michelucci from Pistoia, it dates back to 1973 and was completed in 1983 to replace the wool mill designed in neo-Gothic style by Antonio Salvetti. It is a work with an original structure, which develops on five floors supported by a network of red metal elements on local stone walls. This suspended grid creates space a covered square below for public use. As a whole, the structure is like a fragment of the “new city,” interpreting the collective needs by creating an open and penetrable space that perfectly reflects Michelucci’s concept of the bank as a place of encounter and exchange.
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Santa Maria Assunta a Spugna
The name Spugna comes from the type of sandstone which has the appearance of a sponge. It is recorded in a document since 1777. This is one of the most ancient church of Colle. The restoration in the early twentieth century gave the building a neogothic aspect to the façade (a mullioned window opening within a pointed archand
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a crowning with hanging archies). The church has a rectangular plan, single nave with two small apses on the sides. On the walls there are the remains of frescoes. Among the works of art preserved inside is a 16th century painting of the Tuscan school depicting the Saints Biagio, Francesco, Pietro da Verona and Bartolomeo.
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The Medieval Village & Sanctuary of Santa Maria del Renaio 4.
Borgo del Renaio is one of the oldest documented settlements along the route of the first canals that crossed Spugna. The name comes from the presence of a sandstone quarry in the nearby land along the river Elsa. A settlement developed here after the Abbot of Spugna sold a plot of land located near the Castle of Colle in 1203, in the place known as Pian di Canale. In the 14th century, this building housed the Renaio paper factory. In 1336 dignitaries of the confraternities of Colle had the ‘casa dello Spedale del Renaio’ built for nuns, perhaps the premises of the ‘spedale’ spaces coincide with those of the Chapel del Renaio: a small oratory recognisable by its particular bell tower with two arches and two bells and the Colle and Firenze coats of arms on the facade.
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Don Gnocchi Building
Built according to the design of Giovanni Michelucci from Pistoia, it dates back to 1973 and was completed in 1983 to replace the wool mill designed in neo-Gothic style by Antonio Salvetti. It is a work with an original structure, which develops on five floors supported by a network of red metal elements on local stone walls. This suspended grid creates space a covered square below for public use. As a whole, the structure is like a fragment of the “new city,” interpreting the collective needs by creating an open and penetrable space that perfectly reflects Michelucci’s concept of the bank as a place of encounter and exchange.
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IL PIANO
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Boschi Area - The Old Paper Mill
This area was formerly occupied by the 19th century Schmidt Crystal and Glasswork factory, later Boschi (from which it takes the name). The factory chimney is still visible. The old paper mill has an origin which dates back to 1100 and is the union of two buildings, one of which was a leper hospital called “Spedale”, hence the name “Cartiera Lo Spedale”. In 1427 it became the most important paper mill in the city and in the seventeenth was known for the production of white paper (in the Spedale) and black paper (in the Refugio). At the beginning of the 20th century it became the building was home to a printing house of Vittorio Meoni and his son, which remained active until 1978. The maintenance of this factory was guaranteed by the protective system of
the “gore” that channeled the waters of the Elsa river into small conduits (which are still visible), whose waters activated the “ mallet” heads, for the processing of paper that reached its peak with the production of “paper for stamps” later exported to Europe and North Africa. In 1978, a careful process of restoration of the building began, leading to its transformation into a hotel, inside which the spaces of the old paper mill are still visible. The building has eighty-eight large windows on the two upper floors, formerly used as dryers for the sheets of paper (some of the flooded material from Florentine libraries was stored here in 1968). The gora crosses the road and runs hidden, only to become visible again in the pavement on the west side of Piazza Arnolfo thanks to Lewis Baltz’s intervention.
The Network of “Gore” A source of wealth and energy for factory engines, water has always been a very important resource for Colle in order to guarantee the productive activity of the city. Thanks to the height difference of the river and human intervention, Colle was able to canalize the water from the Elsa River into a network of canals called Gore which permitted the transport of water to the productive center (Colle Bassa) to operate the machinery of the paper mills, the forges and other economic activities. At the end of the seventeenth century this system of canals was expanded to be used by 21 factories. So, the branches called “di Piazza’’ to the west and “di Spugna” to the east were built.
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Crystal Museum
The Crystal Museum, currently closed for renovation, is located in an underground space in the so-called ‘Area Boschi’, deriving its name from the Boschi Glassworks which was bult here and of which a chimney is still visible. The exposition illustrates the history of crystal production, from the origins of glassmaking in the 14th century, to the factories established in the 19th century in Colle di Val d’Elsa, with interesting design objects by artists like Joe Colombo, Angelo Mangiarotti, Cini Boeri and the installation ‘Tears’ by Moataz Nasr. This collection is a symbol of the role of Colle di Val d’Elsa in the international market of the sector, producing today 95% of all the crystal in Italy and almost 15% in the world. The museum also hosts the “crystal forest”, a scenographic interpretation of the emotions conjured up by the material to which the museum is dedicated.
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Square-church and cloister of Sant’Agostino
Piazza Sant’Agostino is dominated by the church of the same name. Built in 1305, transformed in 1521 by Antonio da Sangallo il Vecchio and renovated over the centuries, which is why the Gothic and Renaissance styles are visible. This mixture is evident in the facade: the lower part has a stone wall which features typical Renaissance characteristics in sandstone that opens into a splayed portal with a Gothic ogival lunette. Above this there is a small circular rose window set in sandstone that makes up the upper half of the facade. The neo-Gothic bell tower by Antonio Salvetti dating back to 1900 has three orders of openings (starting from the bottom) single, double and triple arched windows. The floor plan is in the shape of a Latin cross and the interior space was divided into three rooms, bordered by a double row of seven columns supporting arches opening onto the smaller naves. The central nave and transept are covered by cross vaults in correspondence with the arches and windows; behind the presbytery is a quadrangular apse to the right of which is the Bertini Chapel. The interior of the church contains important works of art, including, in the right nave, the 15th-century painting of the ‘Madonna and Child’ attributed to Taddeo di Bartolo, ; in the Bertini chapel, a ‘Pieta with Saints’ by Cigoli (Ludovico Cardi). In the left aisle also worth mentioning, among other works, is the marble altar attributed to Baccio da Montelupo, which contains a 15th-century fresco of the ‘Madonna del Piano’ (from the Church of St Iacopo).
IL PIANO
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The four cantons
‘The four cantons’, an intersection of four buildings built during mid 16th century in place of the Guelph Portal which marked the access to the “Floor”.
The elevator and the bastion 11.
The bastion of Colle, that welcomes all tourists with a stunning view point, is reachable by a tunnel that was once an air raid shelter, dating back to second world war, that leads to the elevator realised by the Syntagma company with the collaboration of J.Nouvel, a French architect. In a niche of the tunnel leading to the lift is positioned Red Girl, a statue dressed in red under a sky of light bulbs made with blown crystal by Kiki Smith, formerly on display in the UMoCA spaces. In 2010 this contemporary American artist had been invited by Cai Guo-Qiang, the director of UMoCA, Under Museum of Contemporary Art, to exhibit in the openair museum staged under the vaults of San Francesco’s bridge in Colle. For the occasion Kiki Smith had chosen to exhibit three of the young women featured in ‘Pause’ - a work of hers presented in Japan. These female figures were set in these evocative spaces lit by a multitude of giant blown crystal light bulbs. At the end of the UMOCA project, two of these girls were donated each to a different town in the Val d’Elsa area.
Headquarter of the choir Bellini
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The headquarter of the Choral Company ‘Vincenzo Bellini’ is one of the most significant institutions of the city. This 16th century palace, belonging to the Ceramelli family was renovated - for the contemporary art event ‘Arte all’Arte 2000’ - by the Italian artist Alberto Garutti. The idea behind the renovation was to create a place where the reality of life of Colle di val d’Elsa can encounter art.
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Palazzo Masson
Where the ‘Porta al Canto’ once stood, Palazzo Masson now stands. Today it houses the headquarters of the institute ‘Ancelle del Sacro Cuore‘, a private school run by this religious order. Antonietta Masson had this palace built by Antonio Salvetti to give her grandfather Stefano, who was suffering an incurable illness, a healthier housing. The location was also perfect to control the ironworks firm of the family ‘Stefano Masson & C.’, which gave an important boost to the local economy during the mid-19th century.
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IL PIANO
Il Castello Dante’s Epigraph 13 Arnolfo’s Tower 14 Santa Maria in Canonica 15 Teatro dei Varii 16 The Alley 17 Palazzo dei Priori 18 The Smile’s Fountain 19 The Crypt of Mercy 20 The Cathedral Square & Via delle Volte 21 Colle di Val D’elsa Cathedral 22/23 Palazzo Luci 24 Bastion of Sapia 25 The Voice Weakens 26 Bacìo Park 27 Palazzo Campana 28
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Dante’s Epigraph
Our attention is immediately captured by a marble plaque inscribed with a verse from Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy. The verses are from the 13th Canto of Purgatory and tell the story of Sapia Salvani. She was a Sienese noblewoman, who witnessed from Arnolfo’s tower the famous Battle of Colle that took place on 17th June 1296. It was just one of a series of battles fought between the Sienese Ghibellines and the Florentine Guelphs for the hegemony in the province. In this battle the Guelph Colle sided with Florence against Siena hoping to defeat the latter to expand territorially in the province. Dante’s verses express Sapia’s happiness for the defeat of her fellow Ghibellines, led by her nephew Provenzano Salvani just because she was jealous of him. As a matter of fact Dante places Sapia in Purgatory because of her envy. In the Tower, there are frescoes by the partisan painter Terreni which represent some scenes of this crucial battle.
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Bastion of Sapia
Sapia Salvani Sapia Salvani was a Sienese nobelwoman. In Dante’s Divine Comedy she is placed among the envious souls of Purgatory for having rejoiced when her fellow townspeople, led by her nephew Provenzano Salvani, lost to the Florentine Guelphs at the battle of Colle in 1269. Despite this, Sapia was also a charitable woman, as demonstrated by her founding in 1274 a hospice for pilgrims, known as the Santa Maria hospice; located at the foot of Castiglioncello, along the Via Francigena, it was later given to the Republic of Siena, for the benefit of the city’s largest hospital. A legend says that Sapìa was murdered in Colle Val d’Elsa in Via delle Volte, behind Palazzo Luci.
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THE CASTLE
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This tower is traditionally identified as the birthplace of Arnolfo di Cambio (C. 1245 1302), one of the most famous architects and sculptors of the 13th century. The entrance is marked by a plaque: ARNOLFO’S HOUSE - edited by Accademia Letteraria dei Curiosi della Natura in 1851. It was walled into the pointed arch of the door, disfiguring it, and later on moved to the side. In the weekly magazine ‘La Martinella’ in 1891 it was published an article where the author imagined Arnolfo di Cambio complaining about this damage done to his house and writing this epigram: ‘Mi han l’arco rotto e medicato poi con un cerotto’ (‘They broke my arch and medicated it with a plaster’).
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Arnolfo’s Tower
The tower can be accessed from Via del Castello opposite the Torre dei Pasci. The simple structure of the building in stone and brick is typical of a ‘casatorre’ towerhouse, the stately home of the local notables in the 12th century. The mansion was distributed in height - with the entrance on the ground floor giving access to the storage room and the living quarters on the upper floors. In the Tower, there are frescoes by the partisan painter Gino Terreni which represent some scenes of this crucial battle that took place on 17th June 1296. A legend says that the Sienese noblewoman, Sapia Salvani, witnessed the Battle of Colle precisely from the tower.
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Santa Maria In Canonica
In piazza Canonica (Canonica square) there is a bronze bust of Arnolfo di Cambio (made out of the 1865’s chalk bust by the Florentine sculptor Reginaldo Bilancini, which is now in San Pietro Museum) and the Romanesque church of “Santa Maria in Canonica”, dating back to 1183. The interior has a single nave with wooden beam roof and a 15th century altarpiece with the “Madonna and Saints” by Pier Francesco Fiorentino. The gabled façade
has an original wagon-wheel rose window and, like the rest of the structure, bears witness to the fact that the building was constructed at different times, as can be seen by different materials used: sandstone for the lower part and travertine and brick for the upper part. Finally, the bell tower houses the renowned “Martinella”, a trophy taken away from the Sienese war wagon in 1351.
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Teatro dei Varii
Teatro dei Varii was first a hospice and then a refuge of Saints Faustino and Giovita, who were persecuted in the second century AD. In the course of time, it would later become a hospital along the Via Francigena and later, a place for musical, theatrical and literary works by the Varii theatre company, which had bought the building in the mid-1700s. The interior has three orders of boxes and the foyer upstairs, while the exterior is the result of the work of the multitalented artist Antonio Salvetti from Colle.
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Palazzo dei Priori
The palace is the current seat of the tourist office. Its structure dates to the 13th-14th centuries and it has two floors connected by an external staircase. The late 15thcentury decoration on the façade is interesting, with the graffiti representation of the Municipality’s coat of arms, held up by putti, and the Medici’s emblem on the corner. 18
This alley leads to the suggestive Via di Mezzo (Middle Street) and, further down, Via delle Romite (Hermits’ Street). On the bishop’s palace wall overlooking the alley there is an aedicule with the fresco of La Madonna del Latte attributed to the painter Cennino Cennini. This illustrious citizen of Colle was active between the end of the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries and was author of a famous handbook for the apprentice painter in vernacular - Il Libro dell’arte - which illustrated medieval painting techniques. Below the niche there is another epigraph with Dante’s verses dedicated to the Virgin Mary (Paradise, XXXII Canto).
THE CASTLE
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The Smile’s fountain
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In the same alley under the arch which supports the staircase of Priori Palace, there is an ancient fourteenth-century fountain known as “Smile’s fountain” for the particular slot that looks like a smiling mouth and for the elliptical openings similar to two eyes. The source was connected to the medieval aqueduct and was used to bring water to the palace through a hydraulic pump activated by a device - a rocking machine working in the slot.
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On the right side of the cathedral, there is the entrance to the Crypt or Confraternity of Mercy, which is accessed by going down a very steep staircase. This leads to an area where it is possible to see the ‘buffa’ and the ‘cappa’, the robes of the Brothers of Mercy. Past this vestibule there is the Oratory of Jesus, Joseph and Mary also known as the Crypt of Mercy. The crypt has a single nave with three altars, the main one was commissioned by Lorenzo Lepri. The walls of the entrance are decorated with frescoes representing architectural scenes attributed to Pietro Anderlini and landscape scenes where parts of Colle are recognizable, like the city gate Porta Nuova. The frescoes of the ceiling, by an unknown artist, depict Hell, Purgatory and Paradise and represent the journey of the soul
The Crypt Of Mercy through these realms. These subjects are linked to the activities of the Confraternity of Mercy, one of the oldest forms of volunteering,which included the burial of the dead and prayers for their souls. The recurrent theme of the end of mortal life is also found represented in the paintings on the walls of the presbytery. The one on the left shows a skeleton trampling a royal crown, a cardinal’s hat and a papal tiara. The frescoes on the right show a skeleton trampling a helmet, a musical score and money. Both served as a reminder of the transitory nature of life and earthly honors. On the high altar, finally, there is a painting by Annibale Mazzuoli representing the Madonna with the Saints Rocco, Lucia, Giuseppe and Alberto. 19
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The Cathedral Square & Via delle Volte
The Town Hall, formerly the Podesta’s Palace, and People’s Palace overlook the Cathedral Square. From the Middle Ages to the 19th century these palaces were the center of the political and religious power of Colle. The first one, dating back to the thirteenth century, shows the typical characteristics of seats of power. The façade presents numerous coats of arms of former chief magistrates along with two towers. The tower on the left - the ancient tower of the Municipality - was shortened due to a collapse in 1636, while the one on the right is the Cathedral’s belfry. The Podesta’s Palace is richly frescoed which includes a Madonna with Saints and an Annunciation by Giovanni Maria Tolosani. There were two other seats representing municipal power, Palazzo dei Priori (Priors’ Palace), found along Via di Castello - and the People’s Palace which is opposite the Podesta’s Palace . The remaining places that frame the square are the Bishop’s Palace, the Palazzo
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Pretorio, the Palazzo Giusti (which was the former seat of the Captain of the People) and the Episcopal Seminary. At the end of the square you can also see the fountain of the Cathedral, with an eggshaped pool and a sponge stone niche, built in 1605. From the square there is also the Street of the Arches, an enchanting vaulted tunnel that passes under the palaces and their hanging gardens until it reconnects with Via di castello (Castle Street) where Palazzo Campana rises. A note of interest, there is a marble plaque in the square commemorating the visit of the Grand Duke, Pietro Leopoldo, King of Hungary, Prince of Bohemia, Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1773. The Grand Duke also visited the cathedral to pay homage to the Holy Nail, a relic of the Crucifixion of Jesus, which according to tradition arrived in Colle in the nineth century. The cathedral had been previously visited by the Grand Duke Cosimo II with his mother Cristina of Lorraine in 1611.
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THE CASTLE
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Colle di Val d’Elsa Cathedral
22. Exterior In the square is the Cathedral dedicated to the saints Marziale, Faustino, Giovita and Alberto, whose construction began around 1602, ten years after Colle was made the seat of a bishop. The church, co-cathedral since 1986, was built on a preexistent chapel, consecrated to the Savior, subsequently turned into a parish church. Its façade with seven blind arches and Corinthian capitals is still visible on the left wall of the current cathedral. On the right side remains a sandstone block with the inscription “M. Bonamicus”, who was probably the master builder of the chapel, recycled into the construction. The façade of the Cathedral was built only in the first decades of the nineteenth century by Agostino Fantastici with a sober and essential style and articulated with different materials. The symbols of the Passion and the Holy Nail (kept inside) are very interesting and represented on the central gate. To the left of the Cathedral there is the Bell Tower built in 1632 by Bernardino Renieri, on which the large clock was then placed in 1807.
23. Interior The interior of the Cathedral looks like a large space with three naves (the central is larger than the lateral ones), with a large transept and a semicircular apse. The covering is made by barrel vaults in the central nave and in the transept, at their crossing point should have been grafted a chapel, which was never built, while the aisles are covered by cross vaults. Inside the Cathedral there are ten chapels. The first on the right, the chapel of San Marziale, is enriched with the paintings of the seventeenth-century painter Giovanni Paolo Melchiorri and dedicated to the Patron Saints. Continuing along the nave, in the fourth chapel, there is the splendid Nativity by the Caravaggesque painter Manetti. At the end of this nave is located the most important chapel, that is the chapel of the Sacro Chiodo which preserves the sacred relic of the Crucifixion of Christ inside an elegant fifteenth-century tabernacle. Above the altar there is the bronze Crucifix by Pietro Tacca and, in the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, the visitors can admire mosaic inlay using precious marble; in succession there is the chapel of Saint Alberto, modernized at the end of the nineteenth-century that houses the relics of the archpriest Alberto da Chiatina.
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The Holy Nail
The legend of the Holy Nail, which is stored in the chapel of the right transept, narrates that the nail was offered by the Pope to a French bishop who got seriously sick near Viterbo during the trip back from Rome. Before dying he gave the precious nail to his travel companion, a priest born in Bibbiano, a small hamlet of Colle di Val d’Elsa. After the priest’s death, according to his final will, the Sacred Nail should have been kept in Colle or San Gimignano. The first people that had reached Bibbiano would have kept the Nail. Upon hearing the news, the people of Colle arrived first, gaining this way the conservation of the relic. The Sacred Nail has a miraculous function for Colle and thanks to it the natural catastrophes that hit the city during the centuries ended quickly. It also has an important ceremonial aspect for the people of Colle to the point that every year in September a procession is held during which the relic is exposed in front of the bishop.
Palazzo Luci
During the 14th century this building was the Palazzo del Capitano del Popolo, literally, the Palace of the Captain of the People, the seat of the municipal power. Around the mid 16th century the building became the property of the Luci family. The palace, built on a pre-existing medieval structure, has a complex architectural structure. Under the Lucis the place acquired its suggestive late mannerist style. The facade is embellished with two side balconies which have travertine balustrades, while the windows are reached with elegant smooth ashlar frames. In the 19th century the palace became the property of the Salvetti family to which the painter Antonio Salvetti belonged. He was an architect by profession and the first socialist mayor of Colle Val d’Elsa. The city has remembered with a plaque on the façade. According to tradition, Sapia Salvani, the famed protagonist of Dante’s Purgatory, was murdered behind the palace.
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Bastion of Sapia
This ancient military structure was a distinctive defensive element of the fortification of Colle. From this a stronghold it is possible to have a wide view of the city including the Borgo of Santa Catarina, the Convent of San Francis and the cathedral. The name of the structure comes from a character which Dante Alighieri describes in the XIII Canto of Purgatory of his great poem The Divine Comedy.
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THE CASTLE
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The voice weakens
Along the outer perimeter of the bastion’s walls there’s a marble column, almost completely buried, of which only the upper part can be seen. The artwork, erected in 1998, was created by the conceptual Ukrainian artist Ilya Kabakov and on top there’s a sculptured open book with the following inscription in low relief:
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“I supported the temple with my highness The temple was cruel and just a half of me is left Years will go by and I will be completely covered by dirt And you, walking above me, will not even notice me.”
Antonio Salvetti Antonio Salvetti was born within the ancient walls of Onci, in the ancient heart of Colle. He was an architect and a painter and above all one of the animators of the cultural life of the city at the end of the nineteenth century, along with Vittorio Meoni. Moreover, he worked as an art photographer and teacher at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence. He made numerous paintings, some of which are exhibited in the Museo San Pietro of Colle di Val d’Elsa. He collaborated with artists belonging to the Italian artistic movement of Macchiaioli, such as Niccolò Cannicci and Telemaco Signorini and, more superficially, with Giovanni Fattori. He designed and built civil and religious buildings. Among the architectural works he left in Colle Val d’Elsa, it is worth mentioning the bell tower of the church of Sant’Agostino, the Palazzo Masson (built in 1876 in the place of the Porta al Canto, just above the Baluardo), the Church of Mensanello and the Cimitero della Misericordia where he was buried.Salvetti also realized the two bas-reliefs placed at the entrance of the “Palazzone”, today seat of the university. On 7th March of 1897, Salvetti became mayor of Colle di Val D’Elsa and one of the first socialist mayors of Italy and ruled the town until 1899. He died in 1931.
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Bacìo park
Under the Bastion of Sapia there is a pathway which leads to Bacìo park. Due to the park’s suggestive scenery on June 15, 2019 the celebration of the 750th anniversary of the Battle of Colle was held there. This battle took place between the 16th and the 17th of June 1269 between the Sienese Ghibelline army and the Florentine Guelph army- The Guelphs had managed with only 1,100 troops to cunningly defeat a Ghibelline army of not less than 9,400 men. This defeat of the Ghibellines happened under the eyes of Sapia Salvani from the bastion.
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THE CASTLE
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Palazzo Campana
Palazzo Campana is a historic building which is considered one of the most evocative corners of Colle di Val d’Elsa called level data. Overlooking the bridge of the same name it is a fine example of 16th century Tuscan mannerist architecture. It was built on a project by Giuliano di Baccio d’Agnolo, as reported by Vasari in 1536 and is partially unfinished. The façade has two floors, with a grandiose Renaissance arch flanked by four large windows. The facade is partly in sandstone and partly in stucco, which stand out with the colours of the sunset. The arch of the palace leads to Via di Castello which is the main street of the historical center and it is flanked by numerous patrician buildings that represented the civil power of Colle.
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IL PIANO
Borgo di Santa Caterina The Church of Santa Caterina The Oratory of the Company of the Cross Baios Square Torrione The Access The Convent of S.Francis Porta Nuova Palazzo San Lorenzo San Pietro Museum Il Palazzone
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The Church of Santa Caterina
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The Church of Santa Caterina of Alexandria is recorded in historical documents since the 13th century. It was renovated during the 16th century. The actual building has a nineteenth century structure due to further restorations that have eliminated a substantial part of medieval framework. However, it is possible to find traces of the original gate with an architrave made of sandstone on the lateral wall of the church. The church presents a gabled façade with two lateral pilasters and a mixed stone and brick finish. In the center there is a stone architrave door which ends with a triangular tympanum,while higher up there is a semicircular window. The interior is a rectangular hall with cross vaults; the presbytery area, separated by three arches is slightly raised and is preceded by an entablature supported by two very impressive Tuscan columns. On the walls there are seventeenth century frescoes with saints and, behind the altar a stained glass window with Saint Caterina and her attributes made by the Ghirlandaio apprentices the Ghirlandaio school.
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Saint Catherine of Alexandria
There is no certain information about her life and death. Besides her uncertain date of birth (in the 4th century AD), we know that Catherine was a beautiful young Egyptian, daughter of King Costa, who left her orphan at a very young age. Many proposed to her but the vision of La Madonna col Bambino putting a ring at her finger convinced her to become “Christ’s Bride”. Catherine is traditionally described as an educated woman able to convert to Christianity a group of rhetoricians sent by the emperor, who probably is Massimo Daia, to have her honor the pagan gods. When she refused even the emperor’s proposal, Catherine was condemned by to death. The Saint was sentenced to die on a cogwheel that broke (attribute of the Saint together with the book, the palm and the sword) and was then beheaded and, instead of blood, it is said that milk gushed out as a symbol of her purity. Today she is the patron Saint of theologians, philosophers, students of the university of Siena, of seamstresses, of craftsmen and in general of the trades that have to do with the wheel, for example potters and wool makers.
BORGO DI SANTA CATERINA
The Oratory Of The Company Of The Cross 30.
Next to the Church of Saint Catherine is the Oratory of the Company of the Cross. Here we can admire the ‘Compianto sul Cristo Morto’ (Lamentation over the dead Christ), a sculptural group in polychrome terracotta made by Zaccaria Zacchi - sculptor, engineer and painter from Volterra of the first half of the 16th century. The artist worked in Volterra, Rome, Florence and Bologna and was perhaps a collaborator of Baccio da Montelupo. This work transmits with great emotion the last moments of Christ’s passion. The subject is taken from the canonical and apocryphal gospels and more precisely it is the scene that is chronologically between the Crucifixion of Christ on the cross and his resurrection. The background of the Lamentation is blue. At the center of the scene is the body of Christ, now lifeless, lying on a sheet.
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Zaccaria Zacchi sculpted the anatomy with great attention, he painted the five holy wounds on the feet, ribs and hands. Thanks to the pictorial rendition, the body of Christ appears dull and dusty. Jesus is surrounded by a series of characters arranged in a semicircle behind him; all of them have suffering faces and poses, demonstrating great sufferance for the death of Christ. Joseph of Arimatea’s hand points towards the corpse of Christ and the sacrifice of his life. John the Apostle, next to him, dressed in red and green appears to be bewildered and amazed rather than suffering. In the center of the semicircle, with her hands in a sign of despair is the grieving Virgin. To the right of the Virgin Mary is Mary Magdalene, with a suffering countenance and tears in her eyes, and Nicodemus who, just like Joseph, points to the feet of the lifeless body of Jesus.
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Baios Square
Walking along the Borgo di Santa Caterina towards Via Gracco del Secco, we come to Piazza Baios, perhaps named after Bartolomeo Guidotti, known as Captain Baiosso, who lived at the end of the 16th century and belonged to one of the oldest families in Colle di Val d’Elsa. From the square you can gain access to Via dell’Amore and Via del Refe Nero where you can admire the tower structure of the medieval residential and merchant edifices that make for one of the most suggestive corners of the village and perhaps the most ancient centre of Colle di Val d’Elsa. These buildings, with their two-colour vestment in terracotta and limestone, typical of Volterra, have the characteristic horseshoe arch in terracotta, that recalls the Pisan Romanesque style.
‘Untitled’, Marisa Merz 33.
Marisa Merz debuted in 1966 in Turin with sculptures made of aluminum foils. For her participation in the 2002 edition of Arte all’Arte, she decided to work on this water tank , which resembles a military small fort that is protecting something precious inside. She changed the wood door into a copper door, a metal the artist often used. The door reflects sunbeams, and it has become a city highlight. It symbolically underlines the passage way from what is visible to the invisible, from what we can see without close scrutiny to what requires a more careful observation.
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Torrione
This is a bulwark built during the reconstruction of the perimeter fortifications of the Castello by the Florentine architects Giuliano da Sangallo, Cecca and Francione. The structure has cylindrical shape, wider at the base with just one entry. There are low openings where the cannons were place. It is made of red bricks and a stone belt, that is a little higher than the half of the structure and is topped with a small pointed structure (an obelisk or pinnacle). At the beginning of 1600 it was used as a water tank, the first storage of drinking water for the population, and it was made part of the medieval aqueduct. The tank today hosts an installation of contemporary art, a copper door by the Italian artist Marisa Merz.
BORGO DI SANTA CATERINA
The convent of St. Francis
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The construction of the Convent of St. Francis dates to the first half of the 13th century, when Pope Gregory IX with a Papal Bull entrusted the prior of the Dominicans of Siena to bless the first stone of the buildings. Dating back to 1229 this makes the convent one of the first Franciscan establishments in Tuscany. Today the convent appears with a simple façade on the outside while the inside which develops along a longitudinal plan shows signs of restoration and modernization. Pointed arche openings recall the Gothic style of the building It was built here when the message of the Saint arrived also in Colle di Val d’Elsa during the 1220s. The gothic building is submerged in green with its bell profile, the two-toned walls and the cloisters with precious sinopites of frescoes dated to the beginning of 1300; inside there are late gothic works dated to the late 1500 and 1700. The Convent is connected to the district of St. Catherine through a bridge whose vaults have become offices of the UMoCA (Under Museum of Temporary Art) since 2001. UMoCA was an expositive space designed with the help of the Chinese artist Cai GuoQiang to host temporary exhibitions like the works of the American artist Kiki Smith. The Under Museum of Contemporary Art was a strictly tied to the natural, historic and cultural context of the city and it tried to build a dialogue with the citizens.
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Porta Nuova
Porta Nuova (also known as Porta Volterrana or Porta Salis, a name reminding the importance of salt trade) is one of the gates that gave access to the medieval village of Colle Val d’Elsa. To the pilgrim arriving on the road from Volterra the sight of the magnificent and imposing Gate, with its large cylindrical towers, must have appeared as a symbol of beauty and importance of the town. The Volterra Gate was rebuilt, together with the new city walls, by the Florentine architects Cecca, Francione and Giuliano da San Gallo, instead of the more backward Selvapiana that was destroyed by the Sienese during the siege of 1479. The gate, with its two truncated conical towers represented the central role of Colle di Val d’Elsa in the war in which Florence and its allies waged against Siena. 31
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Palazzo San Lorenzo
This palace was inaugurated in 1635 as a healthcare facility, commissioned by the Usimbardi family. They were a very powerful and influential family, in fact they gave the first bishop to Colle di Val d’Elsa, Usimbardo Usimbradi. Moreover, the family decided to earmark a more appropriate hospital for the civic ascent. In 1638, following the wishes of the Usimbardi, the hospital was enlarged to assist the lower classes and it was equipped with a pharmaceutical dispensary that provided medicines free of charge to those most in need. Thanks to a donation in 1641, from a certain Bartolommea known as “La Lombarda”, the facility was once more enlarged. Noteworthy, regarding the history of the San Lorenzo Hospital, the decision taken by the grand duke Pietro Leopoldo in 1789, to further enlarge widen the healthcare facility is commemorated by a plaque placed atop of the main entrance. The building, as time passed, underwent various renovations. Particularly significant is the one dating back to 1950-70, including the amplification of the internal spaces whereas the chapel was moved and rebuilt in an area behind the hospital.
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San Pietro Museum
Opposite Palazzo San Lorenzo there is the San Pietro Museum, which houses a small treasure that introduces people to the history of Colle di Val d’Elsa. San Pietro museum’s collection is a combination of works of the Civic Museum, the Diocesean Museum, the conservatory of San Pietro, and a collection of works by Walter Fusi and Romano Bilenchi. The San Pietro Museum is part of the monumental complex of the Augustinian monastery, built in 1604 according to the wishes of Pietro Usimbardi. This building later became a conservatory after the suppression of this religious order by Pietro Leopoldo Grand duke of Tuscany. It was a school before finally becoming a museum. The exhibition retraces the history of Colle through important works of art in a continuous dialogue between religion and the civic ambitions typical of the Medieval communes. The visit begins on the first floor with exhibition of sacred works of art and then proceeds to rooms dedicated to civic collections from the 19th and 20th centuries, including works by Walter Fusi and Antonio Salvetti, two painters from Colle. The itinerary concludes with a section dedicated to Romano Bilenchi, a writer and intellectual from Colle, whose collection was given to the city of Colle Val d’Elsa by his wife Maria Ferrara.
BORGO DI SANTA CATERINA
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Il Palazzone
The Palazzone was designed by the Bolognese urban planner Filippo Buriani in 1886 and built about three years later. The building is characterized by three protruding bodies and the elevation of the buildings are characterized by differing heights. The façade was designed by Antonio Salvetti in 1894. Noteworthy are two reliefs depicting the coat of arms of the city of Colle and the allegory “Intelligence that meditates”. It was the home of a vocational school specializing in iron glass manufacturing. Today it hosts the Technical Institute for Renewable Energies (CREACentro di Ricerca Energia ed Ambiente).
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Usimbardo Usimbardi Usimbardo Usimbardi was born in Colle di Val d’Elsa in 1552 and became the first bishop of the city as soon as it became a diocese in 1592. As an educated young man Usimbardo enjoyed Ferdinando I de’ Medici’ friendship. Thanks to it he first went to Rome, where he entered the clergy and then to Florence where he was made Secretary of State. The fame of an intellectual man and the privileged relationship with the prince granted him, in 1589, a canonicate in the metropolitan church of Florence. Pope Clement VIII’s papal bull of the 5th June 1592 made Colle a diocese and at the same time a grand ducal decree named it first “city”and then noble city. Usimbardo Usimbardi was then appointed first bishop of Colle. To strengthen the local church, Usimbardo put the whole diocese under the protection of the saints John Baptist (protector of Florence), Faustino and Giovita (already patrons of the parish church in Elsa) and gave special attention to the saints’ cult. With a solemn procession he moved into the cathedral the relics of the Benedectine abbey of Santa Maria a Conèo. He also promoted a special devotion to San Marziale, bishop of Limoges and disciple of pope Saint Peter, and made him the new patron saint of the city.In addition, he kept alive the strong devotion of the people of Colle towards the relic of the Sacred Nail. He died of a fever in 1612, at the age of 60 and was buried by the altar of the Most Holy Sacrament inside the cathedral.
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Acknowledgments This publication would not have been possible without the collaboration of so many people with different skills but the same enthusiasm. First of all, we would like to thank all the students who over the years collected, studied and translated the contents that they themselves, as Ambassadors of Art, conveyed to the visitors. We are also grateful to the teachers who gradually joined the project and enriched it with their knowledge and competence.. Thanks to the Pro Loco of Colle di Val d’Elsa which has supported this project since its beginning We will be forever indebted with Matteo Valeri not only for the careful work of graphic design. Thank you for understanding the magmatic world of ‘Ask Me Colle’ and giving it this extraordinary allure. Finally, our warmest thanks go to the several managers of our school who have always encouraged the development of this project over the years even in the most difficult moments The images and texts used in this guide are produced by the Ask Me Colle team of teachers and students. The image on pp. 26 and 27 are by Mario Maccantelli. This work was produced to be used exclusively for free educational and informative purposes. If you own the copyright of any image or content or would like to report other copyright issues, you can send an email to askmecolle@gmail.com. Ask Me Colle Team
Journey Notes
ASK ME COLLE is a vocational training pathway created for the students of the fourth year of Istituto San Giovanni Bosco, whose aim is to find out and to fully experience what Colle Val d’Elsa has to offer: cultural and artistic heritage, environment and territory. The stars of the project are our students, who are responsible for the promotion of the city, as if they were real ambassadors of art, showing their interaction skills with the public and their language abilities, on a tour that reveals hidden places, masterpieces and monuments of the historic center.
Ask me Colle was born in 2017, as a project of school-work alternation. Its realization was possible thanks to the collaboration between students and teachers of the school and the Proloco Association of Colle val d’Elsa.
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Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Università e della Ricerca Dipartimento per la programmazione e la Gestione delle Risorse Umane, Finanziarie e Strumentali Direzione Generale per interventi in materia di Edilizia Scolastica per la gestione dei Fondi Strutturali per l’Istruzione e per l’Innovazione Digitale Ufficio IV
PER LA SCUOLA - COMPETENZE E AMBIENTI PER L’APPRENDIMENTO (FSE)
