Barberino Val d'Elsa
Discovering the town
Entering the borough through the lower gate, to the left we find a noble palazzo: it is known as the Cardinal's Palazzo and on its entrance door there is a coat of arms with bees, that is, the one of the Barberini, Pope 
Urban VIII's powerful family. Inside there is a picturesque courtyard with a round well and a representation court: To the right of the door there is another fourteenth-century palazzo erected on the eastern walls and now turned into a farm. Proceeding along the main road, on the right we encounter the beautiful Palazzo Pretorio, now the provostship of San Bartolomeo, with a renaissance facade adorned with noble coats of arms belonging to the Magistrates up to the XV century.
The thirty-five coats of arms on the facade belong to the most important families of Florence and are mostly made of grey stone. On the opposite side of the square there is a building with a loggia that had the typical function of communal loggias as public area for representation, meetings or even covered markets.
The provostship of Barberino underwent remarkable changes in the course of centuries until it was radically transformed in 1910 by the Florentine architect Castellucci, who also changed the orientation of the facade from the main square to the valley. An interesting remain of the old church is the cross, sculpted and enclosed in a sphere of the architrave external to the main door.
Inside one can admire a few fragments of frescos dated XIV-XV century, a bust in bronze of the Blessed Davanzato as well as his mortal remains. Near the Florentine gate we find the Pilgrim's Hospice in which there are some frescos and a tombstone. Recently restored, the building now houses the rooms of the Municipal Library. A statue has recently been placed in the square in front of the Town Hall, in commemoration of the fourteenth-century writer Francesco da Barberino to whom our town owes its existence, by the German sculptor Quirin Roth.
