San Giovanni Valdarno

San Giovanni Valdarno is a town with 17,019 inhabitants (as of 31 December 2012) in Tuscany ( Arezzo ).

Geography

The municipality of San Giovanni Valdarno is located in the Arno valley and consists of the districts Badiola - Renacci, gruccia, Borro al Quercio, Ponte alle Forche, Porcellino, Pruneto and Monte Carlo.

The neighboring municipalities are Castelfranco Piandiscò, Cavriglia, Figline Valdarno e Incisa ( FI), Montevarchi, and Terra Bracciolini.

History

San Giovanni Valdarno was re-established from 1296 under the name " Castel San Giovanni " of the Commune of Florence as so-called terra nuova (fortified town). The place served the border security of the Republic of Florence at its located upstream of the Arno neighbors Arezzo as well as a fortified, about a day's journey from the mother city distant marketplace and customs station on the pilgrimage and trade route Via Cassia to and from Rome.

Importance for urban planning

The Castel San Giovanni was the prototype of a series of five realized Neustadt -ups on the part of the Commune of Florence, the order from the turn of the 14th century 's aim was to secure the fledgling territorial state fortifikatorisch at its periphery. In the following years until 1348 Castelfranco di Sopra ( Valdarno), Scarperia ( Mugello ), Firenzuola ( Apennines ) and Terra Bracciolini ( Valdarno) were established according to the same type.

The urban type of this medieval settlement towns is particularly characterized by the strictly perpendicular organized city layouts, which are clamped symmetrically about a longitudinal central axis. The most elongated rectangular (San Giovanni, Scarperia, Terra Nuova ), partly almost square ( Castelfranco di Sopra, Firenzuola) " forts " were edged out of a busy city wall with towers. The gate towers today preserved only in isolated cases in the medieval substance were located at the centers of the four wall edges were specially dedicated to the patron saint and quoted as lordly landmarks the architectural forms of the gates of the mother city of Florence.

The center of the city always takes a marketplace, a, to, or for which a municipal palace was built to house the office of the bailiff employed by the parent municipality ( Vicari ). For the construction of the cities, the rural population of the region was - in granting temporary tax privileges - committed that formed the later urban population. The orthogonal street grid and the dimensions of the embedded strip plots and on building volumes built according to uniform design specifications, suggest a planning process, were taken for use in the strict geometric design principles to create a hierarchical body of the city as a social topography of a newly urbanized population. About the Free Art of the geometry of the body of the city was a " godly ", given the contemporary ideas of the Heavenly Jerusalem quoting form.

The design principles can be on scholastic textbooks on geometry (eg Liber abbaci of Fibonacci ), as well as theological and political theoretical sources ( Thomas Aquinas, De Civitate Dei of Augustine, Vitruvius ) provide urbanistic into a rich framework theories of medieval and Roman antiquity. So far, very little research is intended to cover possible references to the Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum. The urban design is to this day, though ultimately not secure since Giorgio Vasari ( Vite ), attributed to the sculptor Arnolfo di Cambio and architects, is named after the popularly known as the Municipal Palace ( Palazzo d' Arnolfo ).

The urban type of Florentine Terra Nuova is closely related to the French fortified towns of the 13th century (eg, Aigues -Mortes ). This stylistic influence line finds its political counterpart in the contemporary alliance of the French royal house of Capet with the papacy. A more formal predecessor of Terre nuove is the city founded in 1255 Pietrasanta.

There is some debate in the research, the extent to which the Florentine terre nuove, and especially San Giovanni Valdarno can be seen as their prototype, as early ideal cities or as precursors of the ideal cities of the Renaissance.

Attractions

  • Convento di San Francesco a Monte Carlo, 1424 arisen monastery.
  • Basilica di Santa Maria delle Grazie, built in 1484 Basilica.
  • Chiesa della Santissima Annunziata, the church and monastery since 1528th
  • Chiesa di San Lorenzo church.
  • Chiesa di Santa Lucia Church.
  • Palazzo d' Arnolfo, 12th century, named after Arnolfo di Cambio.
  • Pieve di San Giovanni Battista, Pieve, 1312 originated.

Sports

The local football club AC Sangiovannese 1927 is currently playing in Lega Pro Seconda Divisione fourth-rate.

Twinning

San Giovanni Valdarno is twinned with:

  • Mahbes, Western Sahara
  • Corning, United States

Sons and daughters of the town

  • Mariotto di Cristofano (* 1395 )
  • Tommaso di ser Giovanni, known as Masaccio ( * 1401 ), painter, pupil of Masolino da Panicale.
  • Giovanni di ser Giovanni, called Lo Scheggia (* 1406), painter, brother of Masaccio.
  • Giovanni Mannozzi, called Giovanni da San Giovanni (* 1592 ), painter
  • Francesco Feroci (* 1673 ), musician, first organist at the cathedral of Florence.
  • Niccolò Nasoni (* 1691), painter and architect
708090
de