Santa Maria Novella

The locality called Nuovole, where the small rural church of Santa Maria existed since the early 11th century, is the place where the castrum called de Santa Maria Novella would later be built. The fortified center had taken the name of the place and of the small church whose remains are still conserved at the villa-farm. The church, with a single room, still has an interesting single-lancet window that opened at the center of the apsidal basin. The archivolt, made of a single block, is decorated with two frames, with dentils along the intrados and with a strip along the extrados. On the face of the arch block of the single-lancet window, two zoomorphic figures are sculpted in bas-relief, within circles. The features of the building seem to refer to the 12th century castle church. In fact, Santa Maria Novella is mentioned for the first time as a castrum in a famous donation of the year 1126. The document clarifies its origins, probably related to the two noble families who had conspicuous properties in this part of the Valdelsa in the 11th and 12th centuries: the Counts Cadolingi and then the Alberti. The reference is to the donation of a series of curtes and castles made in favor of the bishop of Florence, Goffredo, an exponent of the Alberti family. The donor was the widow of Rodolfino of Berardo de Catignano, a personage belonging to one of the family groups linked, up to the early 12th century, to the Counts Cadolingi and then, perhaps after the extinction of the line, to the Alberti. It is indeed in the first half of the 12th century that the conditions were established for a more intense rooting of the Counts Alberti in the Valdelsa, a presence that would culminate in the project of founding Semifonte.

Observing the famous 1126 donation to Count Goffredo degli Alberti, it can be noted that all the assets acquired were made up partly of curtes and castles of the former Cadolingian domain, such as Linari, Catignano, and perhaps also Santa Maria Novella, and of others already making part of the possessions of the Alberti house, like the castle of Pogni. It is in fact in the first half of the 12th century that the Alberti house greatly strengthened its presence in the Valdelsa, along an important penetration route that led from the Valdarno toward the south. One of the most significant episodes of the rise of this noble family was certainly the founding, at the end of the 12th century, of Semifonte. On one of the routes along the median ridge between the North and South Volterran Roads, on the initiative of Count Alberto IV, a new walled village was founded in competition with all the towns that then dotted the routes and the most important road junctions of the Valdelsan road system. The project, as known, was brusquely interrupted by Florence, destroying Semifonte a few decades after its birth. From the oath imposed on the inhabitants it has been learned that a group of nine heads of families came from Santa Maria Novella. Thus, a large group of inhabitants of the castle of Santa Maria Novella had gone to populate the new foundation of the Alberti. During the 13th century the small castle, now included in the Florence contado, was bought by the Florentine family of the Gianfigliazzi; many of the castles that lost the function linked to the ancient holders of rights (the great noble families of the Florentine territory) became the object of investment by wealthy exponents of the rising new merchant elite.

The war-related events linked to the descent of Emperor Henry VII in the early 14th century also involved the small castle of Santa Maria Novella, which in 1312 was occupied by the imperial troops. Its defensive structures still must have been efficient if the castle was claimed as belonging to the empire. During the 14th century the property passed from the Gianfigliazzi family to the family of the Sanminiatesi, however the castle church was still the heart of the community of residents who lived in the houses and farms documented also in the ancient toponym Nuovole. In 1358 the small community of Santa Maria Novella had to provide, by order of the city of Florence, contribution for the expenses necessary for the restoration of the walls of Certaldo. Therefore although the old castle had now become a private residence, in the late 14th century the community was still somehow linked to the site (1375, actum in castro et populo sancte mariae novelle). The building complex of Santa Maria Novella had to be radically transformed during the first decades of the 15th century, when the old castle was by this point equipped with the typical features of a fortified country residence. In a land registry of 1427 we read: Santa Maria Novella: a place to live, or fortress with vegetable garden called "Garden" [...] which place is inhabited by the said heirs [...] and in the said place they keep a man who looks after the said place and works the said garden, to whom they give 11 florins a year plus expenses. The man works a certain vineyard there, that is, the pergolas and rows of poles with climbing vines that are in the garden. This is the beautiful complex that was depicted by Leonardo at the beginning of the 16th century on one of his most famous maps. In the map of Windsor Castle collection RL 12278, just above the castle of Lucardo, we can see the profile of a castle surrounded by walls, well turreted, marked with the toponym S [anc] ta Maria Novella. The dwelling-fortress represented for Leonardo a place still fortified in perfect efficiency in case of necessity.

The current appearance of Santa Maria Novella probably dates back to the second half of the 19th century when the property belonged to the Franceschi-Galletti, a Pisan family related to the Aulla, the previous owners. The neo-gothic reconfiguration of the exterior of the late-medieval buildings is owed probably to the new owners. In particular, as has been observed, the tread surface level has been raised considerably at the façade with the monumental entrance, the part that is more deeply modified. The intervention seems to be from later than 1820 and must have been functional to the creation of the entrance in the neo-gothic style embellished with mullioned windows, three-light windows, and the crenellated crowning, found only on this façade. The major 19th-century interventions have not, however, erased the early medieval fortress layout, which is still recognizable in the series of buildings of different shapes and sizes that surround the central courtyard.