Prato - Main Sights

Main Sights

Prato is home to many museums and other cultural monuments, including the Filippo Lippi frescoes in the Cathedral of Santo Stefano, recently restored. The Cathedral has an external pulpit by Donatello. Also of interest is the Teatro Metastasio, the city's main venue for operas and other theatrical productions, which was built in 1829-1830.

Palazzo Pretorio was built from the 13th century in red bricks. The part in white stone is from late-Gothic era. In the 16th century an external staircase and a watch were added. Also notable is the Palazzo Datini, built from 1383 for the merchant Francesco Datini. It has decorations by Florentine artists like Agnolo Gaddi and Niccolò Gerini. In 1409 it housed Pope Alexander V and Louis of Anjou. The Palazzo degli Alberti (12th century) is home to an art gallery with works by Filippo Lippi (Prato Madonna), Giovanni Bellini (Crucifix with Jew Cemetery) and Caravaggio (The Crowning with Thorns).

The Castello dell'Imperatore is the northernmost castle built by Frederick II of Hohenstaufen in Italy. A further major attraction of the city is the Centro per l'arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci a museum and education centre concerned with contemporary arts.

Other churches include:

• Santa Maria delle Carceri, commissioned by Lorenzo de' Medici to Giuliano da Sangallo in 1484. It is on a Greek cross plan, inspired by Brunelleschi's Pazzi Chapel. Works lasted for some twenty years. The interior is run by a bichromatic maiolica frieze by Luca della Robbia, also author of four tondos depicting the four Evangelists in the cupola. The external façade is unfinished, only the western part being completed in the 19th century according to Sangallo's design.
• Sant'Agostino, built from 1440 over an existing edifice from 1271. It has a simple façade with a rose window and a bell tower with pyramidal top. The interior is on the basilica plan, with a nave and two aisles divided by brickwork columns having "waterleave" capitals (c. 1410). The apse chapels date to the late 14th century. The interior is home to canvasses by Giovanni Battista Naldini, Lorenzo Lippi, l'Empoli, Giovanni Bizzelli and others, as well as 14th century frescoes. The cloister dates to the 16th century.
• San Domenico (begun in 1281), with a portal from 1310.
• San Francesco (1281–1331). It houses a funerary monument of Geminiano Inghirami (died 1460), and the frescoes by Niccolò Gerini in the Migliorati Chapel.
• San Fabiano, already existing in 1082. It houses precious traces of a pavement mosaic dating from the 9th-11th centuries. Also notable is the 15th century bell tower.
• the late-Baroque Monastery of San Vincenzo.
• Santa Maria della Pietà, built in 1617-1619. It houses a canvas by Mario Balassi (1638) and a 14th century fresco of the Madonna with Child, with alleged miraculous powers.