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Birthplace of Paolo Uccello
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| The heart of the little
town of Pratovecchio is located between two squares that
the locals refer to simply as Piazza Vecchia and Piazza
Nova. In Piazza Nova the town lives its everyday life; Piazza Vecchia is its history, its memory. The office of the National Park is located here, as are two convents - the one of the ‘old’ nuns and the one of the ‘new’ nuns, obviously. The Camaldolese and Dominican nuns have always taken a vow of enclosure but their presence has deeply influenced the spiritual and civic life of the town. Since the 12th century the Camaldolese convent has been housed in a palace along the Arno that belonged to the Counts Guidi of Romena. The Dominican complex was founded in the 16th century and occupied the town’s old chapel. So a third church was born in the square, the Propositura, as if to complete a spiritual cycle of faith and devotion. This charming piazza is completed by civil buildings: the cassero (castle), houses leaning in a semicircle against the old castle walls, the 17th century Palazzo Nardi Berti and the 18th century Palazzo Vigiani. The latter stands in the middle of the square and according to legend is built during the day by the lords and destroyed at night by the people. It is now the administrative office of Casentino Forests National Park and has an ancient predecessor: as early as the 14th century, outside the town near an old Benedictine coenoby (coincidence?), stood a building where a ‘minister’ managed the woods of Casentino on behalf of the Florentine Republic. This was the end of the via dei legni, the logging road, where great trunks of silver fir were rolled into the Arno to start their journey to Florence and Pisa. Over the centuries Casentino had a number of experts in forestry. The most famous one, in the 19th century, was the Bohemian Karl Siemon, who often received visits from the Grand Duke Leopold II. The logging activity influenced the life of the town, projecting Pratovecchio beyond the confines of the valley. Life became more animated in Piazza Nova: new shops sprang up, a ‘cafÈ-restaurant’ opened, and Dr Giuliani, in his pharmacy, prepared the bitter medicine that he supplied to the Royal Family. The two piazzas and the arcaded street that join them form the heart of Pratovecchio. The town gave birth to the humanist Cristoforo Landino and the painters Jacopo Landino, Giovanni del Biondo and Paolo Uccello, a gifted, visionary artist, one of the fathers of perspective. Opposite the town, across the Arno, stands Romena Castle, one of the fortresses of the Guidi family, whom Dante tells of in Canto XXX of the Inferno. |
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| © Photo: Andrea Barghi |  |
A little further down is the Pieve di Romena, unanimously recognised as the Casentino’s best example of Romanesque architecture. Lesser Romanesque churches are also found on that side of the Arno, at Valiana and Lonnano, and at Ama, a short way above the recent Etruscan finds. |
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