Articolo disponibile anche in: Italian
Terra cotta is one of the symbolic products of the Chianti territory. The grand masters of this antique art are usually found between the towns of Impruneta and Greve in Chianti.
Brunelleschi’s Dome is only one example of the centuries old magic of “cotto”, terra-cotta. The historic furnaces have continued to promote this true art. It is still incredible to assist a “fuocata”, the fires of the terra-cotta furnaces that bring forth statues, vases and urns.
Along the Chianti roads you will find witness to these treasures: on roofs, in gardens, in homes. Then there is the production of the more industrial type of terra-cotta, which suffered with the housing crisis, that is found for the most part in Ferrone, a town between Impruneta and Greve in Chianti.
It is interesting to note, that in the Chianti area, where this product was born and affirmed, there are few, rare installations which show the “cotto” in the present and the future: not the cotto of vases, urns and shingles. And although the new Antinori winery in Bargino, San Casciano, is internally coated with a hyper-technological terra-cotta (visible, of course, only to those who enter), there is only one visible work in the Chianti region that tells the story of “Cotto 2000”.
It is the “Carlo and Massimo Baldini Library” in piazza Terra Madre in Greve in Chianti, inaugurated in May of 2013. It is the only visible example of terra-cotta in its “modern” version. Perhaps the Chianti region has looked to the past for too long regarding this wonderful local product.