Sesto Fiorentino (), known locally as just Sesto, is a municipality (''

comune The (; plural: ) is a local administrative division of Italy, roughly equivalent to a township or municipality. It is the third-level administrative division of Italy, after regions ('' regioni'') and provinces (''province''). The can also ...

'') in the

Metropolitan City of Florence The Metropolitan City of Florence ( it, Città Metropolitana di Firenze) is an administrative division called metropolitan city in the Tuscany region, Italy. Its capital is the city of Florence. It replaced the Province of Florence. It was firs ...

Tuscany it, Toscano (man) it, Toscana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Citizenship , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = Italian , demogra ...

, central

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

History

The oldest known human settlement in the area dates from the

Mesolithic The Mesolithic ( Greek: μέσος, ''mesos'' 'middle' + λίθος, ''lithos'' 'stone') or Middle Stone Age is the Old World archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic is often used synonymo ...

(c. 9,000 years ago). The Etruscan presence is known from the 7th century BC, but the town proper was created by the Romans as ''Sextus ab urbe lapis'' ("Sixth mile from the Town Milestone"). The first churches were built in the early Middle Ages, among which the most important became the Pieve of San Martino. Sesto Fiorentino was subject to the Archbishop of Florence. Later it was under the Florentine Republic, which dried the plain and boosted the area's economy starting from the Renaissance age. In 1735, Marquis

Carlo Ginori Marchese Carlo Ginori (1702–1757), Italian politician (Tuscany) and founder of the Doccia porcelain factory in Sesto Fiorentino, near Florence, Italy. He pioneered the development of porcelain production, contemporary with Meissen, in mid-eighte ...

founded one of the first porcelain plants in Europe, the Manifattura di Doccia. Now under the name Richard-Ginori, the company is still located in Sesto, and is the largest porcelain manufacturer in Italy. Toward the end of the 19th century, craftsmen who had been trained at Richard-Ginori began to start their own pottery studios, some of which also grew into factories. There are currently over one hundred producers of pottery in Sesto Fiorentino, and a state school for teaching pottery, now called L'Istituto Statale d'Arte. Sesto Fiorentino was annexed by plebiscite to the newly unified

Kingdom of Italy The Kingdom of Italy ( it, Regno d'Italia) was a state that existed from 1861, when Victor Emmanuel II of Kingdom of Sardinia, Sardinia was proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy, proclaimed King of Italy, until 1946, when civil discontent led to ...

in 1860. The town was a protagonist in the late 19th century workers struggle, and in 1897 it elected the second socialist member ever of the Italian Parliament, Giuseppe Pescetti. In 1899 it was the first town in Tuscany to have a socialist mayor.

Main sights

* '' Pieve di San Martino'' (Parish church of St. Martin), known from around the year 1000. The interior has a nave and two aisles, the inner part dating from the 12th century. On the high altar is a ''Crucifix'' by ''

Agnolo Gaddi Agnolo Gaddi (c.1350–1396) was an Italian painter. He was born and died in Florence, and was the son of the painter Taddeo Gaddi,who was himself the major pupil of the Florentine master Giotto. Agnolo was a painter and mosaicist, train ...

'' (1390); notable are also a ''Circumcision'' by Jacopo Vignali and a ''Four Saints'' by

Santi di Tito Santi di Tito (5 December 1536 – 25 July 1603) was one of the most influential and leading Italian painters of the proto-Baroque style – what is sometimes referred to as "Counter-Maniera" or Counter-Mannerism. Biography He was born in Flor ...

. * ''Palazzo Pretorio'' (1477). * ''Santa Maria a Quinto'', mentioned in the 11th century but rebuilt in the 18th century. It houses a notable triptych by

Spinello Aretino Spinello Aretino (c. 1350 – c. 1410) was an Italian painter from Arezzo, who was active in Tuscany at the end of the 14th and the first decennium of the 15th century.Villa Guicciardini Corsi Salviati'' * '' Villa La Zambra'' * ''Villa Paolina'' * ''Villa Villoresi'' * Park of Villa Gamba, known as ''Parco del Neto'', an English-style garden built in 1853. * Etruscan findings include the ''Tomba della Montagnola'' (7th century BC), the ''Tomba della Mula'' and the Necropolis of Palastreto (8th-6th centuries BC).

International relations

Sesto Fiorentino is twinned with: * Wieliczka,

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

* Al Mahbes, Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic * Bagnolet, France *

Stefanaconi Stefanaconi () ( grc, Στεφανικόνιον, translit=Stephanikónion) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Vibo Valentia in the Italian region Calabria, located about southwest of Catanzaro and about east of Vibo Valentia. As ...

, Italy

In literature

Sesto Fiorentino and its surroundings inspired the setting for the book '' The Adventures of Pinocchio''. Sherlock Holmes scholars determined that the unnamed Italian town in "

The Adventure of the Empty House "The Adventure of the Empty House", one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is one of 13 stories in the cycle collected as ''The Return of Sherlock Holmes''. It was first published in ''Collier's'' in the ...

" was Sesto, and a bust of Holmes stands in the town.

People

Poet Alberta Bigagli was born in Sesto Firorentino in 1928. Cyclist

Alfredo Martini Alfredo Martini (18 February 1921 – 25 August 2014) was an Italian cyclist and coach from Sesto Fiorentino, north of Florence. Professional from 1941 to 1957, he won a stage in the 1950 Giro d'Italia and was later the coach of the Italian ...

died in Sesto Fiorentino in 2014. Since 2021, a yearly cycling race honours his name.

References

External links

* {{authority control Cities and towns in Tuscany