Tuscany - Province of Prato

I have passed many times through this young province, even when its territory belonged to Florence. Only once, however, have I been to Prato, the provincial capital, for tourism. On that occasion I visited the Romanesque cathedral that guards the relic of the girdle that, according to tradition, belonged to the Virgin Mary. At a corner of the façade stands the Pulpit of the Sacred Girdle, in practice a semicircular external pulpit topped by a small canopy over the square. Inside there are valuable frescoes by Filippo Lippi in the choir, the Chapel of the Sacred Girdle with the precious relic, and a statue of the Madonna and Child by Giovanni Pisano.

The old town, largely bounded by walls, presents numerous other features, among which stand out the medieval Palazzo Pretorio, the mighty Castle of the Emperor commissioned by Frederick II of Swabia and Piazza del Mercatale, one of the largest in Italy. Outside the walls, as shown by the incomprehensible writing on the shop signs, entire zones are inhabited by the Chinese community, the largest in Italy and the third in Europe. The Textile Museum is the most important of its kind in Italy, which is fairly obvious given that Prato is the Italian capital of this sector. In the province I visited, near Artimino, the Villa "La Fernanda", also called "of the 100 chimneys" for the very numerous chimney pots on its roof. On another occasion I arrived by chance in the characteristic village of Carmignano, set on a hill near Poggio a Caiano.