Piazza San Domenico

 

You didn’t expect to find such a nice corner down here, did you? The whole square has been recently restored and given back its sense of timeless atmosphere!

 

Even if  we’ve walked quite a long way, we’re  not that far from the Cathedral and the Prato, the park near the Fortress, we’ve just visited.  
In fact this small lane on the right takes up there. You’re right! Those tall pine-trees already belong to the park.  Luckily there are some benches here. Shall we sit down for a little while? 

You can find evidences of the long story of our town.  Where shall we start from?

 OK! Let’s start from the houses there along Via San Domenico on our right. They were all built in the Middle Ages and then restructured many times in the following centuries, they all have a courtyard and possibly a small garden behind. They’re quite  elegant, aren’t they?    

The big severe building on your left, instead, is Palazzo Fossombroni.   
What? Yes, you’ve already heard this name, haven’t you? When? But sure! It’s the name of our school!  You’ll also meet a representative of this family in Piazza San Francesco…….No, don’t worry….No formalities…It’s just a statue..!  

Attached to this ‘Palazzo’ you can see the Monastery of the Dominican Friars and then the church of San Domenico.    

 

Why….this face? What are you looking at? Ah! The bell tower…It’s a bit unusual, isn’t it? I’ll tell you some details about this church in a few minutes….It’s certainly one of the most impressive ones in town.   

 

 

 

 

Now, look right! Can you see the walls? And a Gate down there?! It’s Porta San Biagio. They’re centuries-old and think that in the fields beyond the Gate, Roman and even Etruscan remains were found during the long works of restoration of the Walls. But ….you’ll hear more about it very soon, too.   

As you can see this part of the town has still got some hidden gardens,  some of them are private but there also few public ones, like the one on the left of the Gate. There are always children playing there when the sun shines.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The smaller houses behind us have the same Medieval structure as the ones on our right. And they underwent several restructurings too. As you can easily deduce, they belonged to less wealthy families. But they all have gardens at the back.