The name is derived from an ancient fortress of the XII century. In 1297 Martinus Jacobi Admannati built a “domus” and a “castrum”. Not far from here was an ancient port which linked with the canals the marshes to the Arno river, connecting in this way the Pistoia townhall to the sea. In the same area there was the ancient “hospitium” of San Donnino, of which we remember the title of the present parish church of Castelmartini.

Inside, at a single nave, a painting of the first half of the eighteenth century representing St. Joseph with Saints Anthony Abbot and Donnino is preserved on the main altar.

The Garden of Memories

The Garden of Memories Paysage by Andrea Dami is an artistic landscape in the geographical landscape; the relief surface is triangular to remember the surface of the Padule (the Marshland) and contains 36 “worked tiles” dedicated to the fallen in the municipality of Larciano, all dead here in Castelmartini, together with the 77 panels that recall those of Cintolese, 24 of Stabbia, 6 of Massarella, 1 of Querce and 31 of Ponte Buggianese, which “represent” the 175 victims of the massacre occurred on the morning of 23 August 1944. The sculpture Paysage is therefore composed from one hundred seventy-five rectangular fragments – the victims – and those of Castelmartini (36) bring plastic signs: quadrangular or cubic to remember the women, spherical and round to remember the men. Irregular tiles, as different were the lives of the 175 victims, who “float” in the marshy reservoir, slightly oblique with respect to the horizon (the randomness, the unpredictability of life, the illogical on the hoped-for certainty). My brother is here is an installation consisting of a series of graphic-cultural themes emerged from works of Mail-Art, whose title was “My brother died here”. Andrea Dami and Simone Fagioli (author of the idea of Mail-Art) have transformed the surface of this ancient cemetery in a big “postcard” with inside the signs emerged from the eighty-two mails received from many countries of Europe, America and Asia. The nine “pictograms-tables-platforms” of My brother is here, made in mosaic, were executed by Daniele De Paola, Antonietta Maraia, Enzo Maddaloni, Alice Matteoli, Sara Pagnini, Martina Pieraccioli, with the help of Alfio Niccolai. The Garden of Memories has been recently renovated and enriched with new posters to allow the visitor to get to know the space of art in which it is immersed.

More to visit in Castelmartini

More to visit in Castelmartini