Castello dell'Imperatore
[edit] History
Arouses curiosity that this "Emperor's Castle" was erected by Frederick II in a place - Prato feud "Ghibelline" accounts of Lombard Alberti from the seventh century AD - That is alien to the tradition dell'Hohenstaufen castle. As is well known, the Swabian emperor has built its only castles in the south, in the "Puglia" above, and for this reason, the impressive building of Prato is still attached, a little 'trivially for indeed, the exclusive importance of being the castle of Frederick to the north of Italy. And Europe!
Prato is Florence sull'A11-Sea about 10 km from Florence, at the foot of the Apennines, and is the tenth province of Tuscany, established in 1994 along with other "minor" cities, such as Croton, Biella, Verbania, Rimini, Lecco etc.. It is in that same ancient flood plain in which settlements were built "centuriata" of Florence and Pistoia, the city "Roman" Dark Ages very important, which, with Prato have the common characteristic of being naturally been founded immediately behind the Apennine Mountains which divides Tuscany from the north. For Roman heritage, the plain of the Po, then go in the Franco-Germanic empire, was accessed with the unique path consular "normal" age: Flaminia. All other roads and paths "alternative", although there were more difficult and uncertain, that is impractical for large armies and short pitches. Florence then, the terminus of Cassia, was, like Prato and Pistoia, in the happy position, that is relatively protected from the "cold" North, admirably exposed to the sun of the South (Dante had lovingly referred to as "the garden of the Empire").
Why then is trivial believe that the castle of Federico Prato is important only because it has built further north than the others? Other reasons, unacknowledged and inenarrati, make it unique and interesting from a historical perspective, explaining the peculiarities, although there still remains, fundamentally, a military fortress, a military outpost, a base of support, so devoid of those characteristic elements architectural and aesthetic "vision" Frederick. Difficult to present the castle located "midway" between Sicily and Germany.
was built between 1237 and 1247 by Sicilian favorite dell'Hohenstaufen, Riccardo da Lentini. This "trademark" is recognized in the portal of entry for the same form of Castel del Monte: both insist on the same pentagon circled. The decade is a period of bitter struggle to subdue the emperor to his plan universal municipalities Lombard-Po: Vicenza, Mantua, Parma, Pavia, Milan, etc. Faenza. So the construction of the Castle Meadow was primarily a pass-key into the political design of Frederick to Italy: the subjugation of communal and papal imperial power "Romano-Germanic" under his name.
Lawn up to that point was from a historical past normal and ordinary by a development, even though characterized. The city lies along the loop downstream of the mouth of the river Bisenzio, right tributary of the Arno, from the mountains of the Tuscan-Emilian pours right at the beginning of a much irrigated alluvial plain, already in Roman times by regimata ' centuriation still evident in "camps". Today this great natural area protected by mountains "contains" about 2 million inhabitants, with high population density, of European records. In the fifth century, near the river migrating ethnic Lombard stopped to set up a first, a true urban village, next to the south and more than a hundred yards of the most rudimentary and existing rural village, the pagus Cornius, a settlement Italiot and Roman (see map 1). This cluster had stabilized around the Forcatura a crossroads of gore (typical name of a local flood courses): the stain of S. Gonda, the gora gora of the Chestnut and Romita, hence the name cornius. Conversely, the clan Lombard (future Conti Alberti) sketched his settlement using the rectangular shape of the classic pen of shepherds and cattle breeders. En passant, it is not out of place to remind people that this migration introduced in the Northern Peninsula of the buffalo herd. The quadrilateral of urban foundation took shape over time the actual castle, the curtis that protects the outside with a fortified wall (the first wall Prato: V-VII centuries), and today is recognized in the confined space Via Ricasoli, via faults, because of Rinaldesca Banchelli and so, with the square of the Alberti precisely.
In support of this theory "cortilesca" or "cortesca" the typical settlement of the Alberti, mold Lombard, livestock (cattle and flocks of sheep, cows, buffaloes) than farmers, carried the analog form of other castles in Alberteschi Tuscany: The Castle Lucardo Montespertoli for example. So, in little more than two or three acres are located in two ethnic groups live, two cultures, two social groups, including the newest is apparently more inclined to dominance. The two cities were sharply divided by a major road crossing Europe, which runs exactly east-west line, from Pistoia to Florence: one of the numerous pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela. This route overlaps of people marching to the Via Francigena and its tributaries in the plain. The pilgrims on their way from west to east line of the Sun a stop sheltering and assisted in this city, where the initiative of the monks and friars "pitiful" wealthy local, set at the extreme sides of the medieval village, there are, among other receptacle, the admissions of the two "hospitals" (the Mercy and Sweet), erected in the pantry for the arrival and the restart of Christians in the path of salvation.
If therefore the first walls between the seventh and eleventh centuries takes its distinctly square shape, that is, "pagan", daughter of the original settlement of Lombard conquest, the next period (XI-XIII century), the rear of the crusades classic leads, through the development site of monasticism and its architecture typical "orderly", the construction of the second walls of Prato (1157-1196), steeped in the new Franciscan spirit. And this is the same city on the ridge of which Frederick will build his castle, in the manner and for the reasons that we see now. Meanwhile (the second half of the twelfth century.), In the space immediately behind, around and outside the first wall, rise convents, monasteries and churches: S. Francis, S. Dominic, St. Augustine etc.. Until he has formed throughout an urban area "converted", "repopulated" by a poor and vulgar "devout", bounded and which falls from the second wall built with bricks. Born and developed in short, the extension between the first and second walls, a religious space precise and well localized. The shape of a P is no longer evident, but thanks to a reconstruction studied (see Map 2 and Map 3).
As you can see the castle as "northern" Frederick "attacks" on the east side of the second wall causes it to "jump", thus creating a new opening to the east, overlooking Florence. The construction of Frederick II bursts from the one place higher in the city, dominates and provides a representation of an image and new concept: the universality of the Staufen Empire. On the spot, ie the ground, the curvature of P is currently visible in the one corner of the second and short walls that remained, and anch'oggi this edge can be well observed in the vicinity of the house and the cloister of the Church of S . Francis, along Via Dante. The inclined line of P points, straight and sure, to the northwest corner of the castle. The side of the building, light stone, leaves still see very clearly even less careful observer, the original incorporation of the walls "Franciscan" and the existing castle of the Alberti. In fact, the only brick rinvenibili materials were embedded and incorporated in the base of the tower just north-west of the buttress.
Contrary to the general thesis that accredits the castle as a stage and then connecting to the rest of the Germanic empire (which is not easily accessible from this point, the lack of an adequate Apennine pass which is suitable for transit of garrisons), the evidence so far reported make it more truthful to another theory, historical and urban, about the reasons for such a constant presence "North" of the Staufen castle architecture. The period of construction of the castle coincides, roughly, with the last decade of the life of Frederick II (1237-1248), and remains incomplete, however, the initial project plan. The political project in Frederick is the realization of architecture and, conversely, the architectural design is an instrument for the realization of the political design (the Empire). Time is his school, the style of his court, always traveling. The Alb is all about the universal construction, "globalizing" the Empire, to which you must submit "realistically" the cities and municipalities and the church-Curia. Prato is the natural outpost, strategically, a real zipper on the ground of this design.
The situation is very favorable: Pisa, faithful eternal empire, is there a step, easy to reach the coast of river routes, Florence has already been erected in the imperial vicariate of central Italy, under the command of the eldest son Frederick of Antioch and the papal throne is under observation in a beautiful and easy to aim, and this angle is fixed at your fingertips with the Cassia. Even Grosseto, the feud is more rural and primitive of Tuscany, has already been "fortified". The Italian space station is really all busy, and submissive to the strategy. Under these conditions, the political reorganization of the Kingdom of Italy, but modern absolutist and truly unifying, can be realized.
The city of Prato at the moment does not need to be captured or besieged, as will subsequently those further north, because the Conti Alberti immediately surrender without resistance, and similarity of origin, the order of imperial vassalage. The family later be banished from the city at the time of the Blacks, masters of Florence, in the wake of the previous siege suffered by Matilda of Canossa, because of the apparent nature and spent "Ghibellines" Bankers landowners Prato, which delivering and making subdue the city with the insignia of Frederick "compromise" for ever, and this in the future will have to make the city play a minor part, which will remain for always in the shadow of Florence below.
The Emperor's New Palace Prato rises today, as we said, from 1237 on the crest of the wall "Franciscan", on the eastern edge, overlapping their original castle of the Alberti, encasing (see Map 3). Its function was therefore manifold: the headquarters of military operations aimed at the subjugation of the common "Lombard"; new official seat of the imperial vicar in Tuscany, removed to Florence; strong warning to the possible barriers that a wayward papacy could interpose to design the "global "Frederick, the control center of the network of fortifications, fortresses and watchtowers (San Miniato) built in support and protection" ghibellinità "of central Italy (Tuscia), as confirmed and celebrated, with the castle, in its "non curial".
The architectural features are a confirmation of this feature classically "political" Castle Meadow. His "factory", initially financed with funds from vicarial Florentine and for which his son Enzio gave the first military orders, was not completed with respect to the original plan, but the portal, virtually identical to that of Castel del Monte, except for the use of marble "Green Meadow", the widely anticipated future prospects Florentine Renaissance. The courtyard was designed on two floors, supported by a series of columns surmounted by capitals (chart still detectable to the naked eye). The slots also allow plenty of light input, in addition to the normal operations of defense and offense then in use. The structure of "living" was to protect the range of enemy catapults, located in the wing adequately warm at noon, that is perfectly functional to house the vicar and the garrison.
As a result of the new building was designed the irregular hexagon of new walls (third circle), the perimeter of which stood a wider protection than the city renewed. Both the population that the surface density in a short time would be doubled. The wool trade, already established, had a new impulse, even in support of demanding imperial finances. The construction of new walls came a series of architectural and functional modern and very innovative for its time, and still you can admire some partially: unusual height, roof walkway sentinellare in Gothic drawbridge to the east portal of the castle, for the passage ditch on S. Gonda through an "acoustic" link on the eastern guard (not fully realized), new drainage and flood control in the city perimeter, both for aesthetics and for the filling and defense. Truly the castle marked the transition (center) to a new phase of development: Prato was dragged by force into the circle of the imperial game.
But the project, both the overall policy that the local architecture, as we know it is not fully realized. Before the death of Frederick, the defeat of Parma had marked a major setback in the implementation of "design" Imperial. It would certainly be taken if death (still ambiguous and somewhat 'mysterious) had not caught in the castle of Fiorentino, in 1250. Missing the "stupor mundi", Castle Meadow had then and until today, a fate symbolic and particularly, of "hiding" until it lost for a long stretch of history, the name and original authorship. They were soon overwhelmed and distorted its original architectural features and political. Power Restored to Guelph in Florence and Italy, the castle became a prison for revenge antighibellina, and was covered with hip roofs and huts. The formwork (see photo) was completed, but with the difference in manufacturing Guelph, in whole square battlements and with materials identical to those around the walls of Florence at Porta Romana. Its purpose was to secure the entrance of the Florentine masters in the city. The Keep, which is as it is an afterthought that should be studied right now (2000), which was restored in part, will stand almost intact until the first half of 1900, when the fascist regime brought it down leaving a stump, the now restored to open a kind of "Via dei Fori Imperiali", today Viale Piave. The opening of this "progress" in the thirties, she wanted to revive the glorious Roman Lawn pump nationalist-fascist march. And yet, paradoxically, is due to the Fascist period, with its highly involved transformations "zoning" of Prato, which we will point out, the first restoration of the castle: in the name. The actual term "Emperor's Castle" was then considered more in line with expectations random and bloated imperial (characteristics) of the last twenty years monarchists in Italy. Until then, the building was on the lips of Prato with the most diverse names: Fortress (Santa Barbara), the Prisons, the Castle, but devoid of specific historical reference. They even believed it was the work of '"Emperor" Barbarossa.
From the sixteenth century, when Italy is now the prey of foreign domination and gradually expires small European province, Castle loses as it visually, the "character" of his original nature. Is transformed into a veritable "prison", closed and impenetrable to the imagination; the battlements and towers are hidden and buried with rialzature roof and pitched roof. The main portal is saved by a "sovramattone" and a prison door. On the left side of the facade lies a home craftsman who later will be occupied first by a stone mason by Cavallaro and then city. Improper border wall construction, useful only for separating the pavement from the road, highlights mercilessly affossante function that is assigned, sradicandolo effectively isolating it from its history and the city. For certain times was also used as a hospital.
The new situation of Italian unity does not change much fate. The secular and oppressive spirit that pervades Guelph from the city much longer time (Shadow of Florence) does not do it justice. Conversely, the other aspect of psycho-social character historically part of Prato, which could then, as now, return the original merits in part, that is "secular," Ghibelline, even "Calvinist" mercantilism of his frenzy, was by now too busy time (closed) in the activity and activism of textile production, all taken from the ethics of work and the bill, which was born here.
The small Italian industrial revolution of the late nineteenth century (the liberal Left in power) will not even that big changes to the castle, if not for the fact that the front square of Prisons will become the terminus of a railway Florence-Prato, via fields, already outlined in the Middle Leopoldina. In 1910, the City buys the castle for 30 000 pounds by the military administration, which finally closed the Military School (see photo) that was there. But the fourteenth-century walls, so that those with a united Italy will undergo some changes and malicious destruction! Already the Tuscan government of Lorraine had added to the walls of Prato, distonando not at all, however, the construction of six large bastions impression "Medici", built with brick-and stone decorations on the corners of the perimeter. And were then killed in order to get completely lost, some ports, including the "Fiorentina" for the arrival of the first railroad, the "Menagerie" North, for the passage over the same walls semidemolite the embankment of the railway line Florence -Viareggio, the "Lion" for reasons of viability.
But is that really the fascist period to complete the work of distortion of the walls, overlooking the castle, fortunately. The character as a city of Prato peculiarissimo textile art craft and very poor (a production truly "feudal"), will the rise, with the characteristic of the fascist politics of war and the resulting sanctions, a large industrial city that produces cost very low and advantageous for the state orders, the textile approvigionamenti army of "Imperial Rome". Is "established" in these years in Prato 's "immigration productive", as indeed happened in many cities fascist fate for the "Battle of the work" or "grain" (the "reclamation" of land: Latin, Grosseto, Sabaudia etc..). The sharp increase in the immigrant population, employed in the textile industry of war production, led to significant changes in urban structure, which interested, rather badly, the existing walls. These were disastrously attacked and strangled by new buildings, factories, smokestacks, shelter workers, so that even today the visible and "available" does not exceed 50%. The walls were finally dedicated some "local acts" of the corporate-fascist social legislation and its "modernist" architecture, whose "curiosity" is anch'oggi observable by the eye than "foreign" to the now hardened indigenous eye. In Fascist representatives of the local "institutions" (corporations) took, so to speak, "civilian possession" of the Bastions Medici, their acres of private garden, and certain "appliances" rural administrative and original, turning them into "house", to "rest" of industrial fatigue. Therefore, some places spectacularly medieval historians, remain inaccessible to the "public" places sheltered by the attention and indiscretion, "privatized" as they are, against the "land duty" in a situation of complete illegality of 'use from the point of view of planning law, also present. Not without irony, the situation is "abnormal" in which the walls are still retains the general indifference and oblivion interested.
The Emperor's castle is now observable in the current capacity restored, scarce fifty years, thanks to the commendable policy of the City, which has really returned to its image and its original aspect. Less has been done and is being done to the beautiful fourteenth-century walls that are all one with the castle. True, the city suffers a bit 'of the general loss of historical memory, but perhaps the most serious forgetfulness, carelessness if not interested, is to continue to ignore the potential social and urban utility of a "form" that can become an "end" profit.
[edit] Notes
[edit] External links
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Coordinates: 43°52′43.84″N 11°5′54.80″E / 43.8788444°N 11.098556°E
