The Montececeri Park was famous for its pietra serena quarries: thanks to its easy processing and its typical beautiful grey tending to blue colour, the stone extracted from these quarries was used for ornamentations and sculptural friezes.
Pietra serena was used for all the most important architectural structures in Fiesole like the Roman Theatre, the Etruscan tombs, the Badia Fiesolana, the Cathedral.
Furthermore, many of the great Florentine artists such as Donatello, Brunelleschi, Vasari, Michelangelo, Cellini, to name a few, have left sculpture pieces made with this material.
This route leads through some of the quarries that were located along the sides of Montececeri, looking back to what was once the main activity in this area: the work of stonecutters.
The Piazzale Leonardo bears evidence of a great genius of the past: Leonardo da Vinci. Here in 1506, on the Fiesole hill of Montececeri, the revolutionary test of the Leonardo-designed flying machine took place.
Worth a visit are: Piazzale Leonardo and Cava Sarti: 25 min. (500 mt and 50 mt elevation gain) easily reachable from entrances A and B; Cava Braschi 20 min (650 mt and 100 mt elevation gain) from entrance C; 15 min. from entrance B (300 mt and 10 mt elevation gain); 20 min.( 400mt and 50 of elevation loss) from Cava Sarti - Piazzale Leonardo
During the redevelopment project of the Montececeri Park, some QR coded information boards in Italian and English language, the full contents of which are downloadable, have been installed.
