Palazzo Pretorio

On the occasion of the Leonardian celebrations of 2019, the exhibition entitled Paesaggi in trasformazione tra il Medioevo e l’età di Leonardo (Landscapes in transformation between the Middle Ages and the age of Leonardo) is scheduled at the premises of Certaldo (Palazzo Pretorio) and Barberino Valdelsa (Church of San Michele a Semifonte). The two sites are situated in a landscape of constant mutation: Certaldo and Semifonte, Valdelsan castles of the Counts Alberti, were at the center of the events that marked, at the end of the 12th century, the domination of Florence over these lands, in dispute with that important noble house. On the one hand, Certaldo, which by this point had entered the orbit of Florence, became the populous Valdelsan village that gave birth to Boccaccio. By contrast, Semifonte was completely erased from Florence only a few decades after it was founded. The case of Semifonte, a lost city, was the subject of an international project of historical and archaeological research, coordinated by the Chair of Medieval Archeology of the University of Florence. Suggestive virtual reconstructions allow us to observe the transformations of the landscape, from the medieval age, before and after the foundation of the mythical city of Semifonte, on up until the time when Leonardo represented it, in the early 16th century, in one of his most famous maps, showing the Elsa and its system of castles of the Florentine Republic, among which we can recognize the turreted profile of Certaldo.