Holidays in Prato - Tourist information about Prato

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Holidays in Prato - Tourist information about Prato

The city center of Prato is in the heart of the plain which it forms together with Pistoia and Florence extending from the river Bisenzio, north, up to Ombrone, south. Recent findings have confirmed the presence in the plain of an etruscan city suddenly disappeared for unknown circumstances. Certain is that at the time was already practiced the activity that made Prato famous over the centuries: the spinning and the weaving. In medieval times the plain was partially drained and there were constructed water channels to make the textile mills work. Prato became an autonomous municipality before being recognized as a diocese, things that happened only in 1653. In 1351 the city was linked to Florence and remained faithfull to it until today. Prato has many civic and religious buildings of considerable artistic and cultural interest many of them decorated with white and green marble. Do not to be missed is a visit to the Palazzo Comunale (City Hall) and the Praetorian Palace in front of which stands the statue of Francesco Datini merchant of Prato lived in the half of the fourteenth century. In Piazza del Duomo is the Cathedral di Santo Stefano patron of the city, this is one of the oldest churches already known in the tenth century. Inside, a special chapel houses the Holy Girdle considered the belt of the Virgin, is shown to the parishioners five times a year from the pulpit carved by Donatello. Starting from the cathedral and passing through the old town you come to the Emperor's Castle, the only example of Swabian architecture in northern Italy, built by Frederick II of which now remain visible only the external walls. Next to it ther is the Church of Santa Maria delle Carceri built after some strange phenomena attributed to the Madonna in 1486 by the architect Giuliano da Sangallo, it have a greek cross plan. Prato is enclosed by a circle of walls built starting from 1300 to incorporate the city areas that were excluded from the earlier fortifications: Piazza Mercatale and the Church of San Domenico.|Prato