On top of a small hill overlooking the confluence of the river Elsa Agliena is perched the top of Certaldo which derives its name from the Latin "altus cerrus" or offshore covered with oaks. The origins of the town date back to the Etruscan and Roman times as shown by many findings in the surrounding area: of particular archaeological interest are a large Etruscan tomb chamber of the III-II century BC and a "granarium" Roman wells dug into the rock-silos reminiscent of the shape of a bottle. The first documentation of Certaldo dates back to 1164 when Emperor Frederick I enfeoffed a castle town of Prato to the Alberti who held it until 1200. Later he entered the Florentine orbit gradually increasing influence to become home to the Vicariate in 1415, much to be considered in the Medici era most important political and judicial center of Val d'Elsa and Val di Pesa.
Our tour begins in Piazza Boccaccio, crossed by the ancient Via Francigena, now Via Roma, is the commercial agora looks up to the mighty Acropolis. On it, facing the new City Hall and the new parish, named St. Thomas, built in the mid-1800s, and preceded by a statue of the most famous citizen of Certaldo, Giovanni Boccaccio or the novelist, considered one of the fathers of Italian. Using modern funicular runs up until you reach Porta Alberti, one of the three entrances to the nucleus together with the high Medicean Gate of the Sun and the low door of Rivellino, the most heavily fortified enemy as it is intended all'acerrima Siena. Passing through Porta
Alberti take Via Boccaccio, true backbone of the old town, along this major civic and religious buildings of the town. On the right side we find Palazzo Giannozzi, lines partially modified in fourteenth-century Renaissance center of the museum that preserves the nail nails of all shapes and ages and various tools of civilization. On the left we start with Stiozzi-Palazzo Ridolfi, XIII century building consisting of a quadrangle before the body connected to the tower embattled preceded by the front door. Soon after, the House of Boccaccio, which was faithfully rebuilt after a bomb had almost completely destroyed during the Second World War.
The building houses the national headquarters of Giovanni Boccaccio, with museum and library dedicated to the life and works of the poet, including a number of editions and translations of the Decameron. Another noteworthy building is the Palazzo Machiavelli, characterized an elegant lodge and mighty tower, after which a small square overlooked by the thirteenth-century Church of Saints Philip and James.
The interior has a nave with a semicircular apse, has a fine fourteenth-century fresco Madonna with Child and Saints, the cenotaph and the tomb of Boccaccio, two tabernacles in the Della Robbia glazed terracotta terracotta and a shovel the same authors, the Madonna of the snow. Adjacent to the church there is a small fourteenth-century cloister with two rows of columns that leads into the Augustinian Convent, which now houses the Museum of Sacred Art, which houses important works of painting and sculpture, fine silver, furnishings and vestments liturgical. The end of Via Boccaccio is characterized by the imposing Palazzo Pretorio or Vicar, built in the twelfth century as the residence of the Counts Alberti but altered to its present form during the fifteenth century, when it was transformed in the vicarage. The facade, decorated with many coats of arms, has two tiers of arched windows and crowned with battlements. Going up a wide ramp will reach the access lobby is decorated with coats of arms in stone or painted, are in sequence, the Chamber of Judgments, with traces of frescoes, the Audience Hall, a Mercy school of Fra Angelico Painted in 1484, the courtyard of the Renaissance style studded coats of stone or ceramic.
Continuing on the first floor we enter the Great Hall decorated with frescoes, including badges and merits attention a valuable Madonna with child and then go to the Council Room with stone fireplace dated 1488 and remains of frescoes. Praetorian Palace is located adjacent to the former church of St. Thomas and Prospero in which you can admire the remarkable frescoes and sinopias XV and XVI century. However the most important work is undoubtedly the Tabernacle of the Executed, wondrous masterpiece built in 1464-65 by the Florentine painter Benozzo Gozzoli in collaboration with Giusto d'Andrea and Giovanni di Mugello.
The frescoes, scenes that develop the passion, death and deposition from the cross of Jesus Christ, they were originally in a small chapel, which still exists, located along the Agliena, the condemned were taken there to receive the ultimate comfort before execution.
After the visit to the city center, along the road to San Casciano Val di Pesa, after seven kilometers we reach the isolated church of San Lazzaro in Lucardo, Lombard Romanesque-style building dating from the eleventh century. The facade, as amended, is preceded by a portico built in the nineteenth century, preserving the main entrance decorated with a finely carved arch, the back is graced by the presence of three apses connected to hanging arches with pilasters that shape a fictional gallery niches. The interior has three naves divided by pillars painted by Cenni di Francesco, with a raised presbytery and the underlying crypt discovered during the restoration of the last century, has a wonderful fresco of the same author of the Madonna nursing her child, painted during the period 1385 to 1390. In the town of Certaldo there are other places of worship scattered in different localities or in the woods interspersed with rows of cypress trees, vineyards and olive groves. Among these is worth a stop, the church in the village of Santa Margherita Ski, with gabled facade of the Romanesque period made of sandstone blocks and graceful steeple.
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