THE PRIOR PLAZA

The Plaza of the Prior, paved, of quadrangular form, of great effect scenografico, is one of the most beautiful medieval plazas in Italy, it rises on the "pratum regis" or "pratus episcopatus", terrestrial on which, in the medioevo, it was incentrata the city life; here an important market developed him, favored by the Emperors, of which news is had since the 851. The Lawn was of pertinence of the bishop, that practiced you its jurisdiction, it regulated the merchant activity of it and it received the taxes. The commune, risen just, it will try to replace the Episcopalian authority in these functions, dictating, in turn, laws and statutes. Around the spiazzo of the Lawn, in the time, they began to rise the house-towers and the first buildings, and on the open space you/he/she was planted, to the German use, an elm, under which you/they assembled him the consuls and the elderly ones to discuss and to legislate. The plaza is delimited by beautiful buildings among which: the Building of the Prior, to whose right is the zone absidale of the Cathedral, to white and green gangs, the Episcopalian Building, the thirteenth-century Building Pretorio with the adjoining Tower of the Piglet, Building Meets and the Building of the Pious Mountain.

 

And' the most ancient town building remained in Tuscany. Begun in 1208 by teacher Riccardo, finished in the 1257 bottom the Podestà Bonaccorso Adimari, as it recites the registration next to the portal of entry, introduces the form of a parallelepipedo. The façade, well preserved, you/he/she is crossed by three files of bifore; between the door-torches and the door-standards the unity of measure of the commune is inserted, the reed volterrana and you/he/she is adorned by plates "robbiane" of enameled terracotta, with the done coats of arms to affix from the Florentine judges of the XV-XVI sec., and from others in marble or in stone. To the sides, the two pillars surmounted by marzocchi that they support the Florentine shield, that you/they were assistant in 1472, when the building became center of the Captain of Justice to symbolize the dominion in Florence on the city. The building is surmounted from a pentagonal tower, to two ledges merlati; the superior part was assistant after the damages provoked by the 1846 earthquake.

 

You enters the hallway, with times to cruise, decorated by the coats of arms of Podestà and Commissioners of Justice.
To the 1° floor they are preserved: a Crucifixion and Saints, fresco of Pier Francesco Florentine, that also painted the other Crucifixion in the antechamber of the actual office of the mayor, in the fund the Virgo with his/her/their Child, attributed to Raffaellino of the Politeness. In the room of the Greatest Suggestion, decorated with writings and coats of arms in the XIX sec., where it holds the assemblies the Suggestion of the city since 1257, in the wall leading it detaches the fresco brought on cloth of the Annunciation among the Saints Correct, Ottaviano, Cosma and Damiano. To the right wall: representing cloth the Wedding of Cana, great cloth of Donato Mascagni, XVI sec. In the adjoining room, said of the Junta (beautiful wooden ceiling and painted coats of arms of the '600 and a rich bench of the '400): representing table Persio Flacco, of Cosimo Daddi, a monochrome fresco brought on cloth that reproduces St. Girolamo, two small cloths representing the adoration of the Magis of Giandomenico Ferretti (XVIII sec.), birth of the Virgo of Ignazio Hugford and a cloth with the Giobbe of Donato Mascagni.
To the 2° floor the Pinacoteca is found, founded in 1905 and understanding a conspicuous number of works of Florentine artists, senesi and volterrani of the sec. XIV - XVII. Among the so many: Deposition of the Florentine Red, Annunciation and Madonna with his/her Child and Saints of Luca Signorelli, Jesus with the Sses. Benedict, Romualdo, Attinia, Grecinia and the abbot Buonvicini Domenico's Ghirlandaio buyer, Child with coat of arms and Child with flowers, frescos brought on cloth of Daniel by Volterra, said "the braghettone", to have dressed again the nude of the fresco of Michelangelo in the Chapel Sistina to Rome.
From the summit of the tower a stupendous panorama is embraced on the roofs of the city and on the outskirts; the sight spaces from the Pisano Mountain and the north Apuane, to the Amiata Mountain and the Mountains south Metalliferi and the sea from Lead to You west Spezia.


Formed by more bodies than factory and meeting place to the actual state in the XIX sec., it was center of the Podestàs and the Captains of the People. On the right he raises, merlata, the tower of the Podestà or Tower of the Piglet, adapted to residence since 1511, unanimously retention one of the most ancient of the city; in the tall one, above a shelf it is the figure of a piglet from which the popular name given to the Tower.


Built as House of the Wheats or "Sale", because you/he/she was used as store of the wheat, Episcopalian Building was turned to only after 1472, when the Bishops' building, then situated in the zone of Castle, the ground was shaved to from the Florentines to allow the construction of the Fortitude medicea; the bishops, however, lived only you beginning from 1618. To the façade, it seems Anthony has also worked from St. Rooster the Old one.


Actual center of the Box of Saving of Volterra, the complex englobes medieval and Renaissance structures, that a recent restauration has put in prominence. After the Council of Trento it was center of the Seminar up to the term of the XVIII century.


Structured in the actual form to the beginnings of this century to harmonize with the other medieval buildings of the plaza, the building is constituted by a whole towers and structures of the XIII century, well visible in the back of the construction, from the adjacent alley Mazzoni.