 If you're beginning
to feel overwhelmed by Florence's churches and museums,
or simply want to get away from the crowds for a while,
take a break and visit Fiesole, the town perched on the
hill just north of Florence.
Getting there is easy, it can easily be
explored in a morning. It also has fine restaurants, and
several spots with shaded benches and beautiful views,
should you decide you wish to spend the afternoon enjoying
the breezes that never seem to make it down into Florence
during the summer.
Fiesole (300 m. of altitude in the main
Mino Public square) it tos be distant from the center of
Florence approximately 9 km.
Fiesole has about 15.000
inhabitants distributed for approximately a third party
in the ancient citizen, an other third party in ""Valle
del Mugnone" and
remaining in the fractions, live to houses
scattered of "Valle dell'Arno". The territory measure
approximately 42 Kmq, nearly all in hill with heights
that vary from i 58 m on the rivers of
the Arno to i 702 m on the Pratone Hill, a true roof
on Florence, with preAppennine landscape.
The city center
is connected through the dorsal way for the Elm tree
to the region of the Mugello.
The cross-sectional practicability
is assured from one driven in mesh of ancient roads.
The landscape, in agrarian and forest prevalence,
it is punctuated from the olive trees, in head to the arboreal
cultivations, from spots of forest ceduo or conifers,
and from the houses scattered inserted in the picture with
secular wisdom.
In 1983 the Common one supplied to reorders
of the campaign
disciplining the restoration of the houses peasants,
precious retaggio of the agricultural civilization Tuscany,
so as to to save of the cultural value and it acclimatizes
them.
Little are the carried out industrial activities
from small artisan companies. They prevail instead those
of the services and trades them as well as
that it is spoken about Fiesole like of and typically
tourist
residential area.
The Cathedral of St. Romulus was
built in 1028 by Bishop Jacopo Bavaro with materials
taken from several older buildings and it contains notable
sculptures by Mino da Fiesole. The old cathedral became
a Benedictine abbey, and in course of time passed into
the hands of the regular canons of Lateran.
It once possessed
a valuable library, long since dispersed. The abbey
was closed in 1778. The diocese has 254 parishes. Within
its limits there are 12 monasteries of men, including
the famous Vallombrosa, and 24 convents for women. The principal holy places of Fiesole
are:
- the cathedral ( Il Duomo ), containing
the shrine of St. Romulus, martyr, according to legend
the first Bishop of Fiesole, and that of his martyred
companions, also the shrine of St. Donatus of Ireland;
- the
Badia or ancient cathedral at the foot of the hill on which
Fiesole stands, supposed to cover the site of the martyrdom
of St. Romulus;
- the room in the bishop's palace
where St. Andrew Corsini lived and died;
- the little
church of the Primerana in the cathedral square,
where the same saint was warned by Our Lady of his
approaching death;
- the church of S. Alessandro,
with the shrine of St. Alexander, bishop and martyr;
- the monastery of S. Francesco
on the crest of the hill, with the cells of St. Bernardine
of Siena and seven Franciscan Beati;
- S. Girolamo,
the home of Venerable Carlo dei Conti Guidi, founder
of the Hieronymites of Fiesole (1360);
- S. Domenico,
the novice-home of Fra Angelico da Fiesole and
of St. Antoninus of Florence;
- Fontanelle, a villa
near S. Domenico where St. Aloysius came to live
in the hot summer months, when a page at the court
of Grand Duke Francesco de' Medici;
- Fonte Lucente,
where a miraculous crucifix is greatly revered.
- few miles distant is Monte Senario,
the cradle of the Servite Order, where its seven holy
founders lived in great austerity and were cheered
at their death by the songs of angels;
- S. Martino
di Mensola, with the body of St. Andrew, an Irish
saint, still intact.
If you seat on the mouldering walls of Fiesole, you can
admire these splendid scenes of Italian landscape, with
mingled sensations of saddened contemplation,
and feel that nothing brings to the mind such lively images
of home, or such melancholy recollections of the years
that are past, as the sight of the setting sun in a foreign
land. |
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