Monuments

The Saint Zeno Cathedral Bell Tower

The Saint Zeno Cathedral Bell Tower stands sixty-six metres high up in the sky. A truly unforgettable experience is to climb up to the top from where you can admire a wonderful panoramic view over the whole city.

In the Cathedral Square, the Saint Zeno Cathedral Bell Tower proudly towers above the city. Its present structural condition dates to its original 12th-century reconstruction, and which was then partially modified several times over the years. The mixture of styles – Lombardic in the lower section with the Pisa-Lucca style in the two-toned little loggias – and the use of diverse building materials, such as green marble, often also called…

Pistoia

San Desiderio oratory

The building appears as a bare, rectangular prayer hall with a gabled roof, and it houses a 16th century fresco by Sebastiano Vini.

The former San Desiderio oratory was originally a church for a convent of Benedictine nuns, dating back to 1084. In 1440, Pope Eugenio IV suppressed the convent, and it was then converted into a hospital designed to aid pilgrims and wayfarers. In 1516, the building went back to being a convent, this time for Franciscan nuns, until it was again suppressed, this time by Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo and by the Bishop of…

Pistoia

Monumental Santa Barbara Fortress complex

The history of the fortress is linked to the events of Pistoia's Risorgimento (the period leading towards the unification of Italy) and stores graffiti, writings and drawings in black charcoal and bright red chalk, made by patriotic prisoners.

The Medicean Fortress of Santa Barbara is an important example of 16th century military architecture and was made under the designs of Nanni Unghero, Giovanni Battista Bellucci, called Il Sanmarino, and Bernardo Buontalenti. Its construction was a part of Cosimo the First’s territorial policy but its origins date back to the first decades of the 14th century, during the Florentine Republic’s supremacy, which also accounts for other, still legible, features such as the great central…

Pistoia

San Giovanni in corte baptistery

It is one of Pistoia's undisputed symbols as well as being one of the monuments which render the Cathedral Square truly unique. It is also considered to be one of the finest examples of Tuscan Gothic art.

Pistoia