Tuscany Farmhouses

San Casciano - Art and culture

San Casciano has more inhabitants than other place of the Chianti’s region, it is the only one which show the characteristics of this small town. It’s enchanting with its walls ,dating back to the 1300, in some parts very well conserved, its churches and the renaissance and baroque palaces.
At the beginning, the population lived near the pieve di S. Cecilia a Decimo.
Because of its position not very defensible, the population moved in another place which had walls: the castle of S.Casciano
After the 1272 this region was dominated by the Florentine republic. It underwent the raids of Castruccio Castracani, duke of Athens, and during his dominion he decide to build the walls around the city but the works didn’t finish because the duke died; they was finished in 1356 with towers and four doors.
Some palaces were built by bourgeois Florentine nobles.
In the countryside were built magnificent villas on the ruins of ancient castles or in the centre of  estates.
We must remember the church : of the Collegiata, it was built for a second time in the 1700, it is situated in the high part of the city and here you can find the Annunciazione of Ghirlandaio. Then there is the church of San Francesco dating back from the end of the XV century. Near the last conserved door there is the church of Santa Maria del Prato, initially the church and the Dominican convent were outside the walls, in a meadow, and from it comes its name. Close to it there is a building which is used like hospital. The church was built in 1335 commissioned by the cardinal Latino.
It is the richest religious building of works of art in all the Chianti. The major chapel and the walls of the only nave had some frescoes which were subsequently covered.
The Pergamo was commissioned by the family Bonaccorsi called Lapo, it was realized by Balducci, from Pisa, who was the Andrea Pisano’s pupil. On the major altar there is a picture which represents “The Virgin with Child” and a little figure knelt, it was made by a Florentine master lived in 1300. Next to the lateral pillars of the major chapel there are two pictures by Taddeo Gaddi of the same period ,one represents San Francesco d’Assisi and the other San Pietro they were painted. The Gothic cross comes from the school of Giotto, it is painted and hanged on the right wall. “The Madonna of the Rosary” was painted by Matteo Rossellino, while the “Crucifixion of  Christ” by Jacopo Vignoli and “The agony of S.Carlo Borromeo”  by Lodovico Carati. In the sacristy there is the picture of the Virgin on the throne, painted by Bartolomeo della Porta. Near to it you can visit the Pieve of S. Cecilia a Decimo, which was already mentioned in some documents of the 1043. It was restored and modified a lot of times during the centuries, above all during the Baroque Age. Today it has an arcade before the façade in the shape of hut.
The interior is divided into three naves with some traces of frescoes on the walls. Over the choir there is a picture represents the Madonna with the Child made by the Florentine school.
On the left side rise the bell-tower. The market takes place every Monday.