Discover Chianti

Via Empolese, the road connecting Chianti to the lower Valdarno, winds its way back to San Casciano. Having crossed the Sugana, the steep uphill road reaches the Parish Church of San Giovanni and from here continues uphill toTalente; after Croce di Via it arrives at the hilltop of Argiano and enters San Casciano. The roads to the right follow the hills of the Pesa valley; while the roads to the left, go down towards the Sugana and the Cetinella valleys. ln the past via Empolese entered town through the Porta Empolese gate, also known as Porta delle Monache, or Nun’s Gate, because of its vicinity to the Convent of Santa Maria del Gesù. The gate was demolished in the mid 19th century.

Pieve Vecchia

The Church of San Giovanni in Sugana, situated on a hill with a long avenue of cypresses leading up to it, can be seen on the way up via Empolese. Just before it is the Pieve Vecchia, a little white church with a Baroque bell-gable. They say that it was built in the 13th century over the ruins of a pagan temple. The church is mentioned in documents from 1019 onwards. Since the new Parish Church of San Giovanni was built in the 12th century, the Pieve Vecchia has only been used as a cemetery chapel.

San Giovanni in Sugana

On the right of the provincial road, a short stretch of unpaved road goes up to San Giovanni in Sugana. The church was built at the end of the 12th century to replace the Pieve Vecchia. It has a plain stone gabled facade, which probably once had a portico. At the beginning of the 20th century the circular window and the doorway were restored and the terracotta bas-relief by Francesco Collina was added. The interior has a single nave, frescoed in 1903 in neo-Medieval style by order of the parish priest Riccardo Giandonati, whose family had been for centuries the church’s patrons. The church contains several glazed terracotta pieces from the workshop of Benedetto and Santi Buglioni, which date from the early 16th century.
To the right of the entrance, a garland of fruit and flowers frames a modern statue of the young Saint John the Baptist. To the left, in a frescoed niche on which the date 1505 can be read, is a crib: the Madonna was remade by Francesco Collina in 1904. 0n the right altar is a Pietà with a landscape in the background. Above the left altar, decorated with the Giandonati shield, is a Madonna and Child with the Saints John and Anthony and the Apparition of the Virgin to a Young Shepherdess. A monumental pietra serena arch spans over the terracotta High Altar, a work by Collina of the early 20th century. The artist also designed the neo-Renaissance style baptismal font. Through the side door, across a corridor with the Giandonati tombstone in the wall, you reach the Renaissance cloister. It is decorated with the large early 16th century glazed terracotta armorial bearings of the Giandonati and with a display of fragments of the church’s 15th century decorations, arranged in 1896. On the North side a beautiful Romanesque mullioned window was rediscovered. It is made of green and white marble and is supported by a small column whose capital is a human face.

A Note on Glazed Terracotta

In the first half of the 15th century the sculptor Luca della Robbia began, after much experimentation, to use a tin based glaze on his clay statues and reliefs. This was the beginning of glazed terracotta, which became immediately popular in Florence and then the whole of Tuscany. The works were modeled in clay, dried for a few weeks, and fired a first time; then, they were painted with the white tin glaze or colored with metal oxides. A second firing fixed glaze to the terracotta through a process of vitrificaion. The dignity of sculpture was conferred by this treatment to lowly and low-cost clay, creating a huge demand for the works of the della Robbia. Their kiln in via Guelfa, in Florence, produced dozens of bas-reliefs, statues and frames, which were then sent all over Tuscany.The last Della Robbia descendants left Florence for France in 1529. The workshop passed on to Benedetto Buglioni, who had studied in the workshop of Andrea delia Robbia and, after his death to Santi Buglioni, with whom, as Vasari reminds us, “remained the secret of the glazed earth”.

Villa Talente

Talente is a small village that grew around the now destroyed Church of San Giorgio. It took its name when the ownership of the villa and its farmhouses passed to the Talenti. Among its family members were Francesco Talenti, the architect who completed the works of Florence’s Cathedral, and his son, Simone, employed in the building of the Loggia della Signoria and the Church of Orsanmichele. Villa Talente is a sober building with an ashlar doorway, which was restored in the 16th century. Next to it stands a lovely 17th century chapel.

Montepaldi

The turning for Montepaldi is right after Croce di Via. A castle and a village are mentioned on this site in 1101. The Church of San Pietro dates to this period, although it was, completely restored in Baroque style by its 17th century patrons, the Salvianti. The church has a plaster facade and a simple pietra serena doorway. The villa originally belonged to the Giandonati. In 1534 it passed on to Duke Alessandro de’ Medici. The Corsini bought the house from the Medici family. Bartolomeo Corsini rebuilt the villa from its foundations in 1710. This is recorded in the inscription on the main doorway, which is decorated with the Corsini coat-of-arms.

Mucciana

A right turning on Via Empolese leads you into via di Mucciana; Villa il Poggiale lies at the crossroad. The magnificent building, mentioned in early 15th century documents, boasts a beautiful 16th century facade. On the ground floor an elegant portico with pietra serena Tuscan columns opens onto the garden. The villa’s restoration was probably commissioned by the Corsini, its owners since 1408. Beyond the villa, the unpaved road goes down to Mucciana, a small village named after Mucius, the Roman owner of this land. Until the end of the 14th century the castle of the Bishops of Florence stood where the Il Castellacio farmhouse stands today, the residence of a judge. In 1100 the holdings of Mucciana were donated to the Badia a Passignano, which also bought the Maiano mill on the Pesa river. From the second half of the 14th century the Corsini begun to set up a vast and profitable estate in the area, which included buildings, arable fields and vineyards. The small church was built in regular blocks of alberese stone and pebbles. The openings of the gabled facade are modern, indeed the church was completely renovated in1807 and is presently under restoration.

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