There are also four places in Figline and Incisa Valdarno among the 1,000 open on March 24 and 25 for the 26th FAI Spring Days (www.fondoambiente.it).
In particular, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on both days, it will be possible to visit the Serristori Hospital and the Antica Spezieria (Piazza XXV Aprile), the Casagrande Villa and Farm (entrance from Via Castelguinelli 84), the Giovanni Pratesi Foundation (Piazza Ficino, Logge del Grano side) and the Museum of Sacred Art of the Collegiate Church of Santa Maria (Piazza Ficino).
For the occasion, all guided tours will be taken care of by apprentice cicerones such as pupils and students from the city's primary, secondary and junior high schools.
PLACES NOT TO BE MISSED
As for the Antica Spezieria dello Spedale Serristori, it is a place rarely open to the public. The historic building-whose opening is made possible by the collaboration with the Ausl Toscana Centro-was located in the center of Figline (present-day Piazza Ficino) and was founded in 1399 at the behest of Ser Ristoro di Jacopo Serristori, who in 1890 moved it to the 15th-century Villa di San Cerbone. If, crossing the threshold of the Ospedale, one immediately notices the noble architecture of the villa, the capitals and carved doors, and entering the church one appreciates on the altar the Annunciation by Cigoli (1580), it will be on reaching the Spezieria that one can find a real treasure chest of small jewels. In the nineteenth century, the ancient pharmacy, founded in the first half of the sixteenth century, was also moved there: terracotta and glass vases, different in shape and decoration, preserve remnants of the medicinal materials and compounds indicated in nineteenth-century labels and contribute to the suggestion of an environment that was proposed as the summa of ancient medical wisdom. There is also the Madonna and Child from the polyptych, which Giovanni di Tano Fei made in 1399.
Skirting the walls of Figline, one arrives at the Casagrande Villa and Farm, now privately owned and normally closed to the public, which opens its doors to allow one to retrace moments in the history of the Serristori family, which in Figline assumed a pivotal role in economic, political and social life for centuries. Since the 14th century they had accumulated wealth and gained power, eventually moving to Florence, but retaining activities in their native lands. The harmonious portico and loggia are lined with inscriptions and memories of the Serristori family and the illustrious guests who stayed there; on the piano nobile one goes from room to room among carefully set original furniture, paintings and furnishings. Also planted in the early twentieth century is the marvelous garden, designed by geometric patterns of box hedges and cypresses, enclosed by the walls and the tall massive tower. A true rarity are the monolithic stone vats for dyeing silk. Finally, the ancient wine cellar, reserved for FAI members, is an evocative conclusion to an itinerary dedicated to past and present agricultural activities.
Arriving in Piazza Marsilio Ficino, one can also visit the Museum of Sacred Art of the collegiate church of Santa Maria, which can usually be visited by appointment only, with its goldsmithing and furnishings for liturgical use, sacred vestments and antiphonaries with precious 15th-century miniatures, as well as a rare series of carved wooden processional insignia. Among the major paintings is the altarpiece with Adoration of the Magi and Saints by Andrea di Giusto Manzini, commissioned in 1436 by Bernardo Serristori, which attests to how the painter had frequented Masaccio and was influenced by him, without renouncing the use of gold and the preciousness of the details of international Gothic taste.
On the opposite side of the square you can visit the Giovanni Pratesi Foundation, which can usually be visited by appointment only. In 1987 antiquarian Giovanni Pratesi purchased the rooms that had been the oratory of the former Serristori Hospital. The elegant rooms, brought back to their sober sixteenth-century lines thanks to the restoration ordered by Giovanni Pratesi, make it possible to reconstruct some of the salient stages in the history of the city linked to the Serristori family, the old Spedale and its Spezieria, but also to discover works of art from the antiquarian's collection. Unique and exceptional is the collection of "pietre tagliate d'Arno," reserved for FAI members, a magnificent sampling of about two thousand pebbles collected by the antiquarian in the Arno's renai.
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