Pistoia, the city, the history

It is a town with a wealth of history and art as well as a lively trading centre stretching from the foot of the Appenines to the north eastern tip of the Florentine plain.

Two thousand years or so ago Roman Pistoia was a small fortified outpost on the Via Cassia as the finds discovered below the town have confirmed.
In that period Romans were already aware of its strategical position, close to the forests, to get the wood, necessary to metals productions, and to the water, main transportation way for minerals from the coast.

From the Middle Ages onwards the town’s varying fortunes were tied to frequent changes in the political and territorial situation around it until it was absorbed into the Medici Grand Duchy in 1530. In 1737, together with the whole of Tuscany, Pistoia came under Austrian Lorraine domination before uniting with the newborn Italian kingdom in April 1859. Since then Pistoia’s history has been one with that of Italy. After World War Two the town reinvented itself and expanded; today more than 90,000 people live there. Pistoia’s history is all around you in its streets.

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