Pescia in Tuscany

Pescia is considered the "historical" chief town of the Valdinievole for its abundance of monuments and evidences of all periods. Moreover, the hamlet of Collodi, the small medieval village famous for being the set of Pinocchio's tale, can be visited in the immediate surroundings of this chief town.

The churches of St. Francis (XIV century), the church of the saints Stefano and Nicolao and the church of San Michele, the Convent of Santa Chiara, Palazzo Cardini and Palazzo Cecchi can be admired in the town of Pescia, set in the province of Pistoia with 17,000 inhabitants. The old centre of the town has Medieval origins and was built around the modern Cathedral that once was the parish of Santa Maria. The Bridge of the Dome links the Eastern side where this religious building rises to the Western side that is the seat of the town's administration.
The town's medieval story is represented by the town's structure with the Dome on one side, which was a parish controlled by the bishopric of Lucca, and the laic municipal structures, on the other. Pescia was born as a powerful castle and it soon had to face Florence which conquered the town in 1339 by withdrawing it from the rule of Lucca. Thus, the town had the same fate as Florence and entered the Tuscan Grand Duchy. Later, it was annexed to the Kingdom of Italy in 1860.
The Grand Ducal influence in the town was particularly strong around the XVII-XVIII centuries, when, in the wake of the town's laic and "enlightened" institutional reforms, many of its religious buildings changed their appearance and were rebuilt according to the artistic taste of the time. Today, the town is one of the most important Italian centres in the cultivation of flowers.