Loro Ciuffenna (Arezzo): the stones, the waters, the lights

There are villages that resemble the background of a Christmas crib, especially in the winter evenings when the lights of the street-lamps illuminate with difficulty the stone surfaces became whites and delicates by the snow. And almost without notice it, you walk, you lose yourself through narrow and silent alleys that slip among the ancient stone houses, or in the openings, in the passages that suddendly open round the corner and you do not know where they are leading. And then pass through a little bridge miraculously suspended over the abyss hollowed out by the rushing water of a young torrent. When only a bit further the wooden wheel of an ancient mill are turning.

Places as these, do not inhabit only the dreams, but they really exist and to visit them means to discover a treasure that you never expected to find. On condition that you leave the usual organized tours. As in the case of Loro Ciuffenna, a small village but with a great fascination. A handful of houses tenaciously taken root in the green slopes of the Pratomagno, between Florence and Arezzo. An unusual name that derives from the watercourse that has deeply hollowed the rock, dividing the village into two parts, but that has a indefinte Etruscan sound. And in fact, Loro Ciuffenna, probably already in the Etruscan and in the Roman age, was situated here to control the Cassia road. Then, in the thirteenth century, it became property of the counts Guidi, chiefs of the Ghibellinism, and, between the thirteenth and the fourteenth century was definitively annexed in the Florence territory.

Still today, Loro Ciuffenna preserves its medieval mark. So the ancient mill, for example, that dates back to about the year 1100 and is situated on a rock and is still perfectly working. The place, in the past, was a fortified village with two gates to enter in. One of them is still visible, included in the other buildings and transformed in the watch tower. The little historical centre has preserved its structure made by medieval houses, often decorated by coat-of-arms, that descende embraced one another as far as to remain suspended over the abyss hallowed by the Ciuffenna, climbed over by a bold medieval one-span bridge.

The ancient core of the Guidi's castle, is today occupated by the church of Saint Mary of the Assumption, fourteenth-century plan building that has increased englobing part of the walls and one of the towers, of which you can still see the old entrance. The church preserves considerable fourteenth and fifteenth-century frescos of the Florentine school, unfortunately mutilated, and sixteenth-century paintings. And near, only some meters far, there is the sanctuary of the Madonna of the Humility, edified at the beginning of the seventeenth century to keep the miraculous image of the Virgin once placed in a tabernacle called of the "Humility of the kiln". The sanctuary, in an elegant and not excessive Baroque style, keeps remarkable works of art, as the fifteenth-century fresco representing the "Madonna with the Child and the Saints Peter and John the Baptist", the seventeenth-century "Nativity of the Virgin" attributed to Matteo Rosselli, the "Saint Charles Borromeo adorating the Crucified", of the same period, attributed to Agostino Ciampelli, and the scenografical "Assumption of the Virgin" painted on the vault. Leaving the sanctuary, we could direct our steps towards the top of the hill, to reach the splendid church of Gropina, one of the most important Romanesque buildings in Tuscany, with its incredible ornaments of statues and symbols that seem brought forth from a medieval bestiary. But Gropina, a site dedicated to the adoration of the gods, probably, long before that the name of Christ resounded in it, deserves a separate speech.

On the contrary, let's descend to the the centre and the torrent to visit the museum located in the Town Hall and that exhibit the works of art of an important contemporary artist that just in Loro Ciuffenna was born, Venturino Venturi. So, A tradition of art and manual dexterity handed down from century to century, from millenniums to arrive at nowadays. And that we can find, visiting the small villages or the churches in the sorroundings, in that land around Loro Ciuffenna from the valley bottom till the top of the high mountain. But probably the best thing to do is to stay here and look for the darkness falls, lean against the wall of the medieval bridge, on condition that you do not suffer from vertigo or from the other bridge only few meters above.

So we can discover a point of view even more fascinating of this place, when the lights illuminate the thousand waterfalls and the small streams of water that split on the rocks of the torrent, in the bottom, or come out even from the underside of the houses to drive the wooden mill-wheel. When the stone surfaces of the ancient buildings, stand out against the shadows of the narrow streets of the village. So, let yourself go, when the noise of the day damps until it seems almost disappearing and the human presences are melting away. Only then we can enjoy a spectacle that seems to go on stage only for us. A recompense reserved for few people.

To reach Loro Ciuffenna, take the motorway A1 Florence Rome, issue Valdarno, turn on your right and then, after about 1 km, turn on your left following the directions to Terranuova Bracciolini. Do not enter the centre, but continue on the ring road following the directions to Loro Ciuffenna for about 5 km.