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The city of palaces
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 © Photo: Andrea Barghi |
| On a hill in the middle of
the Casentino, where the Archiano empties into the Arno,
stands the little city of Bibbiena, which paid a high
price for its loyalty to the bishop of Arezzo. Bibbiena's stubborn resistance to the high-handedness of the Florentine Republic cost it its castle and city walls, razed to the ground in 1509. Little remains from those early days: a lovely tower, a door, a window set in a sturdy wall. Bibbiena today is an elegant centre, its streets dominated by the palaces that cardinals and marquises, factory owners and large landholders built to symbolise their magnificence from the 16th century on. Around this central nucleus are the parish church, the oratory, the convent and, further below, on the slopes of the hill, the narrower streets and the lower houses where the poorer classes lived, an area people still today call the &lsquofondaccio' (literally, &lsquothe dregs'). Thus, if there is a theme that can characterise the town it is these palaces, the palaces and the powerful families who lived in them and, through careful marriage strategies, kept a firm grip on that power. Wandering through the streets of Bibbiena means encountering that past, hearing the distant echoes of glorious events. |
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 © Photo: Andrea Barghi |
So here is Piazza Grande with its tower and the old Palazzo Tarlati, which later became Palazzo Bruni, and to the west, along Via Cappucci, Palazzo Ducci and Palazzo Martellini, and then the lovely Palazzo Dovizi, built by Cardinal Bernardo Dovizi, secretary to Pope Leo X, whose elegant loggia is said to have been used by Raphael. |
| Bibbiena has many other
palaces, and even simple details like the Medici and
Hapsburg heraldic devices of Palazzo Poltri or the
mysterious masks of Palazzo Mazzoleni can be striking. For the amusement of all this nobility there was the 18th century Teatro Dovizi, the only surviving example in Casentino, and recently remodelled. The churches of Bibbiena are no less than its palaces. The Pieve dei Santi Ippolito e Donato, built on the foundations of the castle's old chapel, contains a painted crucifix by the Master of San Polo in Rosso, a masterpiece by Arcangelo di Cola da Camerino, and a polyptych by Bicci di Lorenzo. The Oratorio di San Francesco is a baroque jewel with a neo-classical facade, while the church of the Franciscan Convent of San Lorenzo holds magnificent terracottas by Luca Della Robbia that bear the seal of their illustrious commissioner, Cardinal Bernardo Dovizi, also known as il Bibbiena. A short walk from Bibbiena up the peaceful valley of the Vessa torrent is the Dominican sanctuary of Santa Maria del Sasso. |
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A short walk from Bibbiena up the peaceful valley of the Vessa torrent is the Dominican sanctuary of Santa Maria del Sasso. |
 © Photo: Andrea Barghi |
| Construit en 149Built in 1495 to commemorate an appearance of the Madonna in 1347, it is the best expression of Renaissance style in the Casentino. Inside are excellent paintings by Jacopo Ligozzi. | |
