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Fiesole
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A long-established Florentine retreat from the summer heat and crowds,
FIESOLE
spreads over a cluster of hilltops 8km northeast of the city. It predates Florence by several millennia: the Etruscans held out so long up here that the Romans were forced to set up permanent camp in the valley below - thus creating the beginnings of the settlement that was to become Florence. The
views
of Florence, which highlight just how extraordinary Brunelleschi's cathedral dome is, are unmissable, and the airiness of the place makes it great for kicking back.
The central square of Fiesole, Piazza Mino , is a long, gently sloping arena lined with shaded cafes and named after the fifteenth-century sculptor Mino da Fiesole, who has two fine pieces in the Duomo that dominates the north side of the square (daily 7am-noon & 3-6pm). Nineteenth-century restoration ruined the duomo's exterior, and the interior is something like a stripped-down version of Florence's San Miniato, although there's relief from the austerity in the Cappella Salutati, to the right of the choir: it contains Mino's panel of the Madonna and Saints . Behind the duomo lie the interesting Museo Archeologico (daily 9.30am-7pm; winter closes 5pm; L12,000/€6.20) and the adjacent Museo Bandini (same hours and ticket as above), housing a local canon's collection of medieval Florentine and Tuscan art. Gates give onto the Area Archeologica behind (same hours and ticket), featuring a 2000-seat Roman theatre built in the first century BC, a baths complex and an Etruscan temple dedicated to Minerva.
Fiesole's two other major churches are reached by Via San Francesco, which rises steeply from Piazza Mino, partway up broadening into a terrace giving a spectacular panorama of Florence.
Sant'Alessandro
(daily 10am-noon & 3-5pm) was founded in the sixth century on the site of Etruscan and Roman temples and has beautiful
marmorino cipollino
(onion marble) columns adorning its basilical interior. The Gothic church of
San Francesco
(same hours) occupies the site of the acropolis; across one of the convent's tiny cloisters there's a chaotic museum of pieces brought back from Egypt and China by missionaries. An alternative descent back to Piazza Mino is through the public park, entered by a gate facing San Francesco's facade. Another lovely walk heads southwest from Piazza Mino for 1.5km down the narrow, winding Via Vecchia Fiesolana (which branches off the main road) to the hamlet of
SAN DOMENICO
. Fra' Angelico was once prior of the Dominican
monastery
here, and the church retains a 1420
Madonna and Angels
by him (first chapel on the left), and the chapter house also has a Fra' Angelico fresco of
The Crucifixion
(ring the bell at no. 4 for entry). Other useful information
for tourists (each section contains more specific sub-sections): |
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Italy,
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