Premium Featured Accommodation

Foiano della Chiana in Arezzo, Tuscany

Foiano della Chiana - A small agricultural town, with some light industries, near the Chiana plain. From the gate a road leads up to Piazza Cavour where Palazzo Comunale faces the well restored Palazzo Monte Pio. It was built by Ferdinando II de' Medici as a hunting lodge and used as such up to 1670 when it became the pawn shop. It now contains offices belonging to the Comune.

A modern flight of steps leads down to the left and across Corso Vittorio Emanuele (which has an 18C loggia) to the church of San Michele Arcangelo, with a pretty exterior and campanile. It contains fine carved confessionals and benches dating from the 17C, and 15C choir stalls. On the second south altar is a Madonna of the Rosary by Lorenzo Lippi, and on the third north altar, an enamelled terracotta of the Ascension by Andrea della Robbia and his son Giovanni (1495-1500).

Off the south side is an oratory with elaborate stuccoes in the vault and lunettes.
The corso continues to Piazza della Collegiata where there is a well, imposing brick fortifications (including a restored round tower) and a row of houses above brick bastions on either side of Porta Castello. The Collegiata has a Baroque facade. On the third south altar is a Madonna della Cintola (1502) by Andrea della Robbia, and on the second north altar, a Coronation of the Virgin, a late work by Luca Signorelli and his school.

Steps lead up through Porta Castello, a double brick gate, to the church of Santa Maria della Fraternita (ask at the Comune for the key) which contains a 17C ceiling, cantoria, benches, organ, and gilded wood coffer. Four paintings are attributed to Giovanni Camillo Sagrestani, and the beautiful statue of the standing Madonna and Child is now thought to be by Andrea della Robbia (c 1460) probably on a model by his uncle, Luca.

Articles