Driving Tours

The Casentino: From Florence to Arezzo

The forested mountains of the Casentino, the route from Florence to Arezzo closest to the Apennines, have been a hotbed of spirituality for centuries, the corner of Tuscany most like a bit of mystical Umbria. For information on the region, call tel. 0575-593-098 or check www.turismo.casentino.toscana.it.

Head east out of Florence, and on the other side of Pontassieve, a right toward Pelago leads a winding, scenic 24km (15 miles) to Vallombrosa. In 1038, the abbey here was the site of the foundation of the Vallombrosan order by Giovanni Gualberto, a Florentine moved to the spiritual life when he was confronted with his brother's murderer and found he had a greater desire to pardon him than to seek revenge. The current 15th- to 18th-century incarnation of the monastery doesn't welcome visitors, but it's surrounded by stands of evergreen recalling the verdant forests that impressed Milton enough to include them in Paradise Lost.

Another picturesque road leads back up to the SS70, where you can continue 20km (12 miles) to the medieval hill town of Poppi, whose Castello dei Conti Guidi (tel. 0575-520-516) is visible for miles. This castle, started by the architect Lapo in 1274 and finished by his student Arnolfo di Cambio, was the seat of the Guidi counts who ruled the Casentino until 1440, when it came under Florence's realm. Rouse the custodian to visit the frescoed main hall and the Taddeo Gaddi-decorated chapel (1330-40). It's open summer daily from 10am to 7pm, winter Thursday through Sunday only from 9:30am to 1pm and 2:30 to 5:30pm. Admission is 4€.

The rest of diminutive Poppi is fun to explore. Many of the medieval buildings have retained their wooden porticos, and a slightly sleepy village atmosphere prevails. The church of San Fedele is home to a 13th-century Madonna and Child in the right transept painted by the "Maestro della Maddalena." A few of the town's other churches contain paintings by the local baroque talent Francesco Morandini, universally known as Il Poppi.

A branch road leads 15km (9 miles) north from Poppi into the Tuscan half of the national park of Monte Falterona, Campigna, e Foreste Casentinesi (www.parks.it/parco.nazionale.for.casentinesi), one of the last sizable chunks of native forest left in Italy; you can get information at the website above, or in Pratovecchio at Via G. Brocchi 7 (tel./fax 0575-559-054; www.turismo.casentino.toscana.it), open Tuesday through Sunday from 10am to noon and 3 to 5pm (Oct-Mar open Sat-Sun only, and possibly Fri). Among the beech and silver fir trees are the sylvan religious complexes of Camáldoli. The hermitage was founded in 1012 under a rigorous rule of purity and meditation. Such a rarefied spot so near Florence and Arezzo immediately attracted a number of meditative hacks who just wanted a few weeks of monkish life. Because this threatened to disrupt the contemplative routine of the hermitage, in 1046 the founder, St. Romualdo, wisely decided to build a Monastero di Camáldoli about 20km (12 miles) down the road for the dabblers to use. This is now home to the pharmacy, where you can buy the monks' herbal remedies and poultices. Although the monks in the hermitage no longer live as hermits but as monastics, they're still strict about their purity. Vegetarians who eat only what they can grow, members of the order help replenish the forest slowly by planting 5,000 trees yearly, and they don't allow women past the gate into the hermitage proper. (You're not missing much; it's like a miniaturized subdivision of monks' cottages surrounded by tall pines.)

Bibbiena, just 7km (4 1/3 miles) down the road from Poppi, has had most of the charm industrialized right out of it; the tourist office is at Via Berni 29, 52011 Bibbiena (tel./fax 0575-593-098; open Mon-Sat 9am-12:30pm and 3:30-6:30pm, Sun 10am-noon and 3:30-6:30pm; winter Mon-Fri only). However, the church of San Lorenzo has some della Robbian terra cottas and San Ippolito e Donato has a Madonna and Child with Saints triptych by Bicci di Lorenzo.

You can branch off here onto the SS208 and travel 25km (16 miles) to the holy mount of La Verna. Count Orlando Cattani gave this secluded rock outcropping to Francis of Assisi for his new monastic order in 1213. Francis loved to come here to meditate and sleep on the rocks -- a vision had informed him that the odd rents in the rocky ground were caused by the earthquakes that occurred when Christ was crucified. On his last trip here, the night of September 14, 1224, he was praying alone on the rocks when he was visited by a seraph who left him with a wholly new mark of sanctity -- the stigmata of Christ's wounds. Although the wounds in his feet caused him much pain while walking for the remainder of his life, the stigmata confirmed the spirituality of a man already widely believed to be just about the holiest person alive. The small mud-hut monastery he founded has grown and is still a pilgrimage site for the devout. Even those with just a passing interest can tour it to see the saint's cell and the spot where the miracle occurred (tours daily 6:30am-9:30pm, until 7:30pm in winter).

In the main church, Andrea della Robbia left some of the greatest, most spiritual examples of his glazed terra-cotta works, like an Ascension and a beautifully simple Annunciation. The door to the chapel built around the rock where St. Francis received the stigmata is marked with a tondo of the Madonna and Child by Luca della Robbia; the Crucifixion inside is by Andrea. The small Santa Maria degli Angeli, begun while the saint was alive, has another Andrea della Robbia Assumption. Scramble up to the summit of La Penna for spectacular countryside views.

Just below La Verna is the village of Chiusi, which was governed with the hamlet of Caprese for 6 months (late 1474 to early 1475) by the assigned podestà (mayor) from Florence, an impoverished minor nobleman named Ludovico Buonarroti. This brief term of office was just long enough for Ludovico's second son to be born in the house of the podestà at Caprese on March 6, 1474. The baby was christened at the local church of San Giovanni as Michelangelo Buonarroti. Caprese has never forgotten it and has even changed its name to Caprese Michelangelo after the boy grew up to become one of the greatest artists the world has ever known. His birthplace above the town and the nearby small castle have been converted into a small, and not terribly engrossing, museum about Michelangelo's career called the Museo Michelangiolesco (tel. 0575-793-776; daily 9:30am-6:30pm, closed Mon in winter). As of this writing, many of the buildings were closed for restoration work; tickets to the open and least interesting of them were half-price. Normally, admission is 4€ adults, 2€ ages 7 to 14, free for children under 7. Later in life, Michelangelo wrote to Giorgio Vasari, "If my brains are any good at all, it's because I was born in the pure air of your Arezzo countryside."