Hotel Giardino
Bibbiena - piazza palagi 2
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Bibbiena was originally an important Etruscan centre, later becoming a medieval stronghold. Of the castle, the Torre dei Tarlati and Porta dei Fabbri remain visible. Its historic centre is a mosaic of grand palaces: Palazzo Mazzoleni, Palazzo Niccolini and Palazzo Dovizi, the latter commissioned by Cardinal Bernardo Dovizi, who was born in Bibbiena and served as secretary to Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici (the future Pope Leo X).
Religious architecture is expressed in the Church of San Lorenzo, which houses glazed terracottas from the Della Robbia school, the Oratory of San Francesco with its rococo style, the Pieve di Sant’Ippolito, formerly a chapel of the Tarlati castle, and the Sanctuary of Santa Maria del Sasso, one of the most important Renaissance religious buildings in the Casentino. A particular event is the Rievocazione della Mea (last Sunday of Carnival and Shrove Tuesday).
Two palaces belonged to this family: the first, renovated in this century, is located in Piazza Roma and still displays the family emblem: a pair of crossed hammers and a doorway dating from the early fifteenth century. The other palace is in Via Cappucci; its façade, modified in the 18th century, retains a fifteenth-century portico at ground level, which has been sympathetically infilled with both eighteenth-century doors and windows.
Above the main doorway is the sixteenth-century coat of arms of the Martellini, to which those of the Biondi and Montini families were later added.
The rear of the palace is particularly noteworthy, featuring a stone-paved courtyard and an Italian-style garden with pathways and flowerbeds bordered by box hedges.
Inside, in the entrance hallway leading to the garden, there is a mural painting dating from the late eighteenth century. Other paintings on the first floor are also worth noting, featuring grisailles, classicising landscapes and some ceilings with grotesque motifs.
The palace is located in Via Cappucci, adjacent to Palazzo Martellini. Inside is a characteristically small cloister that leads, via a staircase, into the palace proper, where you can admire various rooms, including a particularly fine hall.
The former convent of San Lorenzo in Bibbiena is a building complex currently unused, and the owners intend to sell it. The Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities permits the sale of the entire property without the possibility of subdivision.
Bibbiena’s Municipal Administration wishes to promote the interest of Italian and foreign institutions and universities in using the former San Lorenzo convent as a venue for internships and study programmes, particularly in the artistic and humanities disciplines. The venue can accommodate spaces for teaching activities, workshops, accommodation and dining facilities.
Additional spaces can be identified within certain buildings in Bibbiena’s historic centre to potentially enhance the available facilities at the former San Lorenzo convent.
Bibbiena is a small, safe Tuscan town of around 11,000 inhabitants with numerous cultural activities and an important artistic tradition rooted in the Middle Ages and flourishing in eighteenth-century architecture. Bibbiena is the principal centre of the Casentino, a valley of outstanding landscape, natural and historical value: set amid wooded mountains, medieval castles and Romanesque parish churches, through which flows the most mountainous stretch of the River Arno (the river of Florence and Pisa). Not to be overlooked is the gastronomic tradition, folklore and craft production that characterises Bibbiena and the entire Casentino.
In this setting, conveniently close to Florence, Arezzo and Siena, humanities students can combine productive study in close contact with historic and artistic treasures of the highest calibre with the experience of sharing the lifestyle of a typical Italian community.
A kilometre from Bibbiena stands the Sanctuary of Santa Maria del Sasso, an architectural complex of considerable historical, artistic and religious value, the sole Renaissance example in the Casentino and declared a national monument in 1899. The sanctuary takes its name from a large boulder upon which, in 1347, the Virgin Mary appeared to a young girl named Caterina.
Originally a simple hospice for pilgrims, it was elevated to convent status in 1495 under the guidance of Girolamo Savonarola. The new church was consecrated in 1507. Beside the façade stands the bell tower, which houses an ancient bell dating from 1362. The complex displays Renaissance forms with a simple façade preceded, on the right, by a portico. In the lunette above the doorway is a fresco from 1486 depicting the saints Dominic and Peter Martyr.
The interior is laid out in a Latin cross with a dome and an extension for the choir of nuns. Notable at the centre of the basilica is the artistic Corinthian-style temple by Bartolomeo Bozzolini from Fiesole, which encloses the fresco of the Madonna del Sasso by Bicci di Lorenzo. Works by Jacopo Ligozzi, Giovanni del Brina, Fra’ Paolino da Pistoia and several remarkable Della Robbia pieces are also on display.
Particularly striking is the Cloister, the sole example of a sixteenth-century cloister in the Casentino, featuring arches and capitals that are not all uniform, a fine well dating from 1502-1504 and frescoes depicting miracles of the Madonna del Buio, which have been worn by time.
The theatre was built in Bibbiena’s historic centre on the initiative of the Accademia degli Operosi and to a design by architect Niccolò Matas (1842). Whilst the façade shows no particular features externally and presents the austere appearance typical of the buildings in the urban fabric in which it sits, the interior features a U-shaped plan, three tiers of boxes and a stage parallel to the street front.
Following alterations made when it was converted into a cinema, around 1975 other original features were compromised, such as the removal of box dividers and the elimination of the stage and red draping furnishings. The decoration saw later elements overlaid upon the original motifs, which survive in certain features (corbels for lighting, ceiling decorations), such as wooden panelled panels. After hosting parties, dances, civic events and serving, in the 1960s-70s, primarily as a cinema, the theatre closed in 1982 due to safety deficiencies. In 1997, at the initiative of the Municipal Administration and with financial support from other public and private bodies, the theatre resumed operations following a substantial redesign of its interior fittings and new scenic installation, inspired by typical models from the Italian tradition of the 17th-18th centuries, designed by architect Massimo Gasparon. Since 2001, the theatre has been home to the Association NATA, Nuova Accademia del Teatro d’Arte, which has assumed its management and artistic direction.
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