Lorenzo's house – small refuge from plague 1480

Indipendent house, at the apex of a medieval village in LEGOLI, on the top of the hill, in the center of Tuscany. The property with restored antique finishes has a dining room with a large fireplace close to a wood oven. The kitchenette is equipped with modern induction hob, many style furnishings and a large table for up to six people. Moreover, there is a double bedroom, a living room with sofa bed, bathroom with shower, central heating, air conditioning and WiFi. Private parking place next. The three-storey building is in old country style. It reached its current layout in the nineteenth century, and the renovation I made, was as conservative as possible, so you will be introduced in an old atmosphere. At 20 meters from the house there is a private parking space at your disposal in a small open space between the houses, other free parking spaces are located about 200 meters from the house. The entrance of the house consists of two wooden doors; the first, has a brass shutter and leads to a small entrance with terracotta stairs to the first floor and a passage to the living room on the ground floor; the second entrance consists of a rustic wooden door . It has an opening window with grate which gives direct access to the living room on the ground floor. It can be open during the day or night, in order to connect the living-room with the outside. That ground floor room is equipped with an original wardrobe and with a sofa bed that can be divided into two separate beds. The room was an ancient stable and its function comes out in the authentic iron rings for the menagerie of animals, or in the vaulted ceiling terracotta cruise that wraps the room completing the embrace of the floor of the same ancient material. The room also leads, through another wooden door with a small window and a barrel-vaulted corridor, to the original hemispherical cellar. It is dug into the tuff of the hill behind it, and preserves a microclimate from a natural cave with a temperature of about 16 degrees, the same in summer and in winter, perfect for storing food and wines. If you continue along the staircase, you arrive at the dining room on the first floor which preserves the atmosphere of past centuries. There is a ceiling with wooden beams and terracotta bricks with oak beams (it caged with steel bars for the static safety of the building ), constitutive terracotta floor, antique style furnishings, built-in kitchen with modern induction fires and above all, the main element of the room, the large fireplace where you can enter standing with oak beam and wood oven , all preserved identical from nineteenth century. Here you will also find all the pots suitable for cooking and serving on the table, all the cutlery you need, a particular selection of dishes and glasses housed in an ancient wooden plate and table linen. From the dining room, a staircase partly in terracotta and partly in wood, leads you to the bedroom on the second floor. This environment, the sloping attic ceiling, with wooden beams and terracotta bricks, brings your attention to the large double bed with tall antique bedside tables with marble top, next to the window. From here you can have a glimpse of the country and the Tuscan hills around it. In that second floor there is also the small bathroom with a characteristic window that overlooks the arch in the center of the alley. There is a shower, obtained in the thickness of the wall, which was once the castle wall. The toilet is in a small room carved as a shelf on the facade of the house. The terracotta drain pipe also located in the facade of the house dates back to the nineteenth-century Everywhere in the house, there are small recesses of the walls, which were used in the past as lockers and shelves, adorned with antique furnishings as well as traditional lace and original furniture, give your living room a dreamy flavor of the past.. Why I said in the title the refuge against the plague 1480 I refer to the bubonic plague pandemic of 1480; if you want to read further, let me explain. In fact, in those years, the Florentine painter Benozzo Gozzoli, famous for the peculiar fresco of the “Cavalcata dei Magi” at Palazzo Medici-Ricciardi in Florence, was working on the monumental fresco cycle of the Camposanto in Piazza dei Miracoli in Pisa (the cycle of largest frescoes in the world, made by various artists from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries, which covers all the large internal walls of the sacred place, unfortunately ruined by the bombings of 1944 but masterfully restored on site. As a metter of fact all preparatory drawings called “sinopias” are preserved in a dedicated museum. While Benozzo Gozzoli was completing the paint of the” L’ebbrezza di Noè ?Noah's intoxication box”, one of the great pandemics of bubonic plague broke out in the districts of Tuscany and to protect himself from his miasmas, then as now, Benozzo had to isolate himself in a remote place: Legoli. Imprisoned in one of the few houses that then made up the small hill village (why not, Lorenzo's house?), he kept his hand in training with a small order thanks to a poor collection of local peasant villagers, painting a moving fresco on four sides of a country newsstand, still admirable today in an original setting on the east edge of Legoli. Benozzo Gozzoli was engaged in the construction of the kiosk from May 31?to January - 1479 and in the theme of the crucifixion with saints and angels in Florentine Renaissance style with wings to color, the climate of fear is perceived , the virus that was raging, in the despair of Mary and St. John and in the cadaveric pallor of the Christ who died on the cross. Moreover this fear is expressed in the part that represents the unbelief of St. Thomas, with the finger that sinks into the scourge of the Savior's side; we understand the closeness and consternation of the death that then claimed so many victims. 1480 is the number that brings the small, historic town of Legoli to art and this is highlighted in the center of the village with the monumental sign of the high-level restaurant which precisely reports the name 14.80. The house is only for you and it is isolated on 4 sides from the other houses: there are no neighboring people, despite being in the center of the village, in its highest part, below the high church which, however, is never officiated. Sanitization of the interiors of Lorenzo's house by UV rays and according to AirBnB protocol. I can lead my guests in the local art cities, as I have been a voluntary tourist guide in the Lari Castle ( PISA ) for 10 years and I constantly study history and culture. I like relating to people… 200 meters from the house, there is a tabernacle, with frescos on all four sides by Benozzo Gozzoli, a painter who took refuge in Legoli from 31 May 1479 to 11 January 1480 during the black plague which struck Pisa where he was working at a cycle of frescoes in the monumental cemetery. If you like nature walks, there are two unmarked paths near the Legoli that I have identified, see photos attached here, on partially asphalted roads. There is also an equipped and protected natural area in the nearby town of Castelfalfi 6 km from Legoli,see attached photos, which if you want you can reach on foot with a nice walk but I recommend reaching it by car or bicycle. Instead, point out the following destinations that can be reached in a short time by car: Volterra 30 Km from Legoli: hill town flourishing in the Etruscan period, of which it retains sections of walls with doors, the acropolis with excavations and a magnificent Etruscan museum with many important artifacts as well as a medieval housing system and first-rate artistic and food and wine places. San Gimignano 30 Km from Legoli: The "New York of the Middle Ages" because of its ancient towers that flock in its heyday with art churches and museums (for strong tastes there is the museum of torture) in context outside of time. Castelfalfi 6 Km from Legoli: just 5 km from Legoli is the visitor center where you can find swimming pools, sports, shops, services, pharmacy and restaurants in a recently restored village in style. San Vivaldo 12 Km from Legoli: shortly after Castelfalfi there is a masterpiece of art not at all advertised where, on a wooded hill with free access, streets is the "little Jerusalem of Tuscany" comprising the 14 niches of the Via Crucis represented with statues and bas-reliefs of the sixteenth century in polychrome terracotta of the workshop of Della Robbia. Toiano e Villa Saletta 10 Km from Legoli: two abandoned villages a short distance from Legoli in the Tuscan hills, in a crystallized and dreamy agricultural scenario with splendid scenarios that are rarely or not visited at all. Certaldo 30 Km from Legoli: 30 km from Legoli is the city that gave birth to Boccaccio and consists of a low city and, taking the funicular, the upper town with a characteristic medieval structure. Lari 25 Km from Legoli. The little town preserves numerous remains of its illustrious past when it was in fact the capital of the Pisan Hills. The castle there has been awarded the Orange Flag, a tourist-environmental quality mark awarded by the Italian Touring Club to small towns in the Tuscan hinterland. Famous the "Cherry Festival" held every year in Lari during the last weekend of May and the first weekend of June; "Collinarea" instead of music, theater, workshops and entertainment usually takes place in July. Monteriggioni 50 Km from Legoli. Fortified village with walls and towers with perfect medieval geometry. The place is in its forms, halfway between a castle and a hilltop village and its towers, also sung in Dante's Inferno, inspired the crown that decorates the head of the female impersonation of Italy in coins and prints of the italian age of the rise of the nation called Risorgimento. Small unique and exciting. San Galgano 80 Km from Legoli. Medieval abbey where only the immense walls with windows and rose windows that overlook the void are left. The sky and clouds are the roof of the church. Appeared in several films for a unique emotion Collodi 50 km from Legoli. Medieval village at the foot of the Apennines, it is linked to the name of Carlo Lorenzini, author of Pinocchio. The Florentine writer spent part of his childhood there and took his name, signing Carlo Collodi. In fact, the PINOCCHIO PARK is a unique attraction for children where dozens of book scenes with the famous puppet are reproduced in full size, in the park of the beautiful Villa Garzoni between Italian gardens embellished with myriads of local specialties. The Sea 60 km away and beyond from Legoli The sea in Tuscany is magnificent and the places are wasted from the most popular and nearby with beaches like Tirrenia, Cecina, San Vincenzo to more exclusive places with rocks like Castiglioncello, Baratti, Popuonia. A little further away, there are also more trendy seaside places such as Viareggio, known for its boulevard at more than 2 km with fashionable shops and even more fashionable places such as Forte dei Marmi frequented by Vips The sea near Legoli also has a particular attraction called the Spiaggie Bianche: the only beach with white sand and clear blue sea in Italy. Unfortunately the cause of this is the soda factory which would advise against bathing even if many dive. But the view is from Caribbean beaches. Pisa 50 Km from Legoli UNESCO World Heritage Site (45 minutes by car from Legoli). Universally known attraction: the leaning tower - one of the seven wonders of modern times. If you have some time for a short visit go to Pisa and visit: Piazza di Miracoli (place of the cathedral) and in particular the old monumental cemetery (Camposanto), to visit the museum of sinopias and the recently modernized Museum of the Opera del Duomo, museum of San Matteo (collection of wooden crosses), the banks of the river with its buildings.