Impruneta: Journey along the Imprunetana, the Road from Poggio Imperiale to Piazza Buondelmonti

Reaching Impruneta is like a dream, and this is also due to the roads that lead you there.In fact the entire surrounding area is crossed by a thick network of ancient roads that connect the many tiny villages in the periphery and which pass through a landscape dominated by olive groves. Perhaps the most attractive road is the one that goes by Pozzolatico, leaving Florence from Poggio Imperiale, where branches off to the right of the villa. Winding and very narrow in parts, dotted with terracotta tabernacles at every crossroads, you enjoy a marvellous view along this road.

It begins with a steep descent that leads to San Felice a Ema, where the church of the same name is worth visiting dove vale: for the Romanesque lunette on the white and green marble facade, for the Madonna with Child by Giovanni del Biondo (1387) and the tomb of Eugenio Montale in the adjacent cemetery. Crossing the torrent Ema, the road climbs up again amidst the olive groves to the village of Pozzolatico, situated around the church of Ss. Stefano e Caterina.

The road continues to climb up the hills that separate the valleys of Greve and Ema up to a four-way junction, which lets you make a short deviation to San Gersolè. Even smaller than Pozzolatico, San Gersolè takes the name of the Romanesque church of San Pietro in Jerusalem, which with its single nave looks over an extraordinary expanse of olive groves.

The roads climbs up even higher among colonial houses and villas, to Mezzomonte and the 16th-century Villa Corsini, belonging to Giovan Carlo de’Medici in the 17th century, famous for his dissolute and expensive life, which he had frescoed by Francesco Albani, Giovanni da San Giovanni and Pandolfo Scacchi.

The road continues wedged in between walls and at the top of the ridge, reaching the hamlet of Monteoriolo and the park of Villa Parenti. As you gradually draw closer to Impruneta, there are more and more villas, farms and colonial houses facing onto the road: Monte Meccoli, Villa Agostini, L’Aia, and then around Desco, on the right, one last 16th-century villa with an oil press that’s still in use today. The last stretch runs alongside the wall of the tree-lined park of Villa Accursio and the first houses
in Impruneta, carrying straight on, until you reach Piazza Buondelmonti.

(Portions of this article first appeared in "Toscana & Chianti News")
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