BARBERINO VAL D'ELSA

Following bends and ups and downs belonging to the ancient Via Cassia, the current Statale n°2, between Florence and Siena and on the northwestern edge of Chianti area you can find the town of Barberino Val d’Elsa (m. 373), whose name comes from the nearby valley.
We can immagine that the fortified town walls that surround the medieval core of the village are still those that were outlined, about six centuries ago, against the eyes of pilgrims or merchants on the way to Rome.
The Palazzo Pretorio, adorned with noble coats of arms belonging to the Magistrates up to the XV century, and the Church of San Bartolomeo, which conserves a fragment of a painting by the Giotto School representing the Annunciation and a bronze statue by Pietro Tacca, are in the Barberini Square.
As you leave the Square, walking on the right side of it along Francesco da Barberino Street, you find the XIV century Senese Gate, while on the opposite ending of the village you find the Pilgrims Hospice (1365).
The Townhall, whose Council Chamber has been frescoed by the local painter Marco Borgianni with elements belonging to the typical tuscan landscape, is outside the town walls.
The journey in the past and artistic awesomeness goes on also outside the Gates, where parish churches and castles are disseminated all over the tuscan territory: from the Parish Church of Sant’Appiano, made up of stones (XI century) and brick (XII century), which, in the outbuilding of the Antiquariuum Museum, conserves some archeological finds coming from the necropolis of the area, to the small village of Linari, from the nice Castle of Petrognano to Vico d’Elsa and Petrognano.
Of a particolar interest is also the Chapel of San Michele; built in 1597 by Santi di Tito, it is a perfect copy in 1:8 scale of the Dome of Florence. It was built where the ancient town of Semifonte, completeley razed to the ground by the Florentiners in 1202, stood.
Environmental quality and care are the lowest common denominator of the area
Entering the borough through the lower gate, to the left we find a noble palazzo: it is known as the Cardinal’s Palazzo and on its entrance door there is a coat of arms with bees, that is, the one of the Barberini, Pope Urban VIII’s powerful family. Inside there is a picturesque courtyard with a round well and a representation court: To the right of the door there is another fourteenth-century palazzo erected on the eastern walls and now turned into a farm. Proceeding along the main road, on the right we encounter the beautiful Palazzo Pretorio, now the provostship of San Bartolomeo, with a renaissance facade adorned with noble coats of arms belonging to the Magistrates up to the XV century. The thirty-five coats of arms on the facade belong to the most important families of Florence and are mostly made of grey stone. On the opposite side of the square there is a building with a loggia that had the typical function of communal loggias as public area for representation, meetings or even covered markets. The provostship of Barberino underwent remarkable changes in the course of centuries until it was radically transformed in 1910 by the Florentine architect Castellucci, who also changed the orientation of the facade from the main square to the valley. An interesting remain of the old church is the cross, sculpted and enclosed in a sphere of the architrave external to the main door. Inside one can admire a few fragments of frescos dated XIV-XV century, a bust in bronze of the Blessed Davanzato as well as his mortal remains. Near the Florentine gate we find the Pilgrim’s Hospice in which there are some frescos and a tombstone. Recently restored, the building now houses the rooms of the Municipal Library. A statue has recently been placed in the square in front of the Town Hall, in commemoration of the fourteenth-century writer Francesco da Barberino to whom our town owes its existence, by the German sculptor Quirin Roth.