Guided tours, workshops and shows to discover companies – ancient and avant-garde – of the largest European textile district that are exceptionally open to the public. It happens once a month on the initiative of TIPO (Industrial Tourism Prato) and other partners with a program already successfully started here.
Upcoming appointments at the Ricceri wool mill which years ago won a prestigious award for “the most beautiful fabric in the world: a raw flamed silk, very rustic in appearance, but at the same time very sophisticated”. Other itineraries are directed to the industrial buildings transformed into artistic ateliers, theaters and museums such as the Textile Museum in Prato or the Textile Machinery Museum in Val di Bisenzio where we will also visit the La Briglia workers’ village.
Luilor produces furnishing fabrics
Frescoes and dried figs
As the promoters point out, the project is added to other curiosities of the area linked to history (churches and museums, Medici villas), art (the frescoes by Filippo Lippi and Paolo Uccello, Etruscan archeology, the Center for ‘Contemporary Art Luigi Pecci). Explorers on foot enjoy the Via della lana e della seta, directed to Bologna (130 km) or the Via Medicea towards Fucecchio (78 km). Gourmets appreciate the mortadella di Prato IGP, the dried figs of Carmignano, the Pane di Prato, the «biscuits with almond» and the «Pesche di Prato».
The Via Medicea sul Montalbano – Photo andreascumi
One hundred and one wonders
These and other reasons for visiting the area are also following the suggestions of Piero Ceccatelli, author of “Prato, the 100 wonders (+1)” published by Typimedia with photographs by Fabio Muzzi.
The reference to companies dedicated to the many specializations of textile processing and the reuse of raw materials on which much of the work and fervor of the Prato community has concentrated is inevitable. Among others, old factories are cited today destined for other uses such as the ex Campolmi cimatoria which dominates the historic center of Prato with its chimney and is home to the Textile Museum and the Lazzerini Municipal Library. On the shelves you can find books in Arabic, Chinese and Urdu, “idioms of the most populous foreign communities in the city”: some chapters of the guide, in fact, are dedicated to chinatowns.
A warehouse of the Fabbricone, on the other hand, in 1970, was transformed into an experimental theater where the genius of Luca Ronconi was also represented. A characteristic of the city are the two cycle paths (80km) dedicated to Fausto Coppi and Gino Bartali along the banks of the Bisenzio.
On the cover Piazza Duomo, Prato (photo by Fabio Muzzi). Alongside, Polo Campolmi – photo F. Guerra
Ceccatelli’s guide promotes the surrounding villages such as Fossato, disputed by the warriors for their strategic position and today for the view over the woods. Among the inevitable stops: the villa del Mulinaccio, the Rocca di Montemurlo, the Medici villas in Caiano, Carnignano. But above all, in Gonfienti, the remains of an Etruscan city – probably Camars – on the banks of the Bisenzio on which finds are being worked on. As the author writes “It is from the future that Prato waits for the fascinating secrets of its past to be revealed”.
photo 6 Il Cavalciotto a hydraulic work, built four centuries ago, to support the factories
Il Cavalciotto a hydraulic work, built four centuries ago, to support the factories
There are also stages dedicated to famous people such as Curzio Malaparte: the Fabbricone wool mill where his father worked; the building in via Magnolfi where the writer was born and on the top of Mount Spazzavento where he wanted to be buried: “And I would like to have the tomb up there – he wrote in” Maledetti Toscani “-, on the summit of Spazzavento, to be able to raise his head every now and then and spit in the cold gorge of the north wind ».