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is the definition of the rational town planning
scheme accomplished with mathematical calculation
by the ingenious humanist architect Leon
Batista Alberti student of brunelleschi
and friend of Pope Niccolo’ V and
head of the work of St. Pietro in Rome in
the year 1450 by a decision from the Sarzanese
Pope Niccolò V who availed od the
collaboration of his brother Cardinal Filippo
Calandrini to Establish the stable residence
of the Bishop of Luni, this city was built
on the village of sarzana with the urbanistic
rules of architect Alberti.
Both the gentleman of Sarzana the Doges
Campo Fregoso and the influential merchants
like Calandrini, Griffi, De Benedetti, Bonaparte
and Mascardi gave their support.
Infact the commercial traffic was intence
between the historical Via Francigena and
the “ Fluvial Port “ along the
river Magra.
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The hospital of St. Bartolomeo cured an enormous
flow of pilgrims both towards Rome and towards
St. James of Compostela (Spain). Pope Noccolò
V in 1453 helped the knights of St. John in Jerusalem
remain on the island of roads after the fall of
Costantinopole.
So Sarzana has the privilege of being the first
“Ideal City”, that is to say the first
modern city in history of civilisation. The celebrated
Pienza was built in 1462 by Pope Pio II twelve
years later.
This new urbanistic plan in wich the “ Mathematical
calculation “ is introduced for the first
time as a road network at right angles with paved
roads without open sewers and shops with well
sunlit storehouses and piazze with fountains.
Every building had to have in the courtyard a
well for drinkable water and a sewer for each
toilet in the house, the sewage was used as a
fertilizer for the development in the growing
of vegetables, citrus fruit, shrubs and flowers
and from here the celebrated “ Italian gardens”
So this Ideal city is also an ecological city,
with the rigid planimetry in the ratio and in
the volume.
The hygene and the decoration of the buildings
create research of the “ Art of Beauty”.
Florentine architects collaborated.
In 1473 Sarzana passed under the Signoria of Lorenzo
il magnifico, who had the town council building
designed by Giuliano da Maiano, and to embellish
it, like the façade of the Romantic epoch
of the cathedral of Santa Maria, in marble from
Roman times from Luni and adorned (capitals and
columns) as the sarzanese Chancellor Antonio Ilani
reminds us.
The historical centre corresponds to the standards
of the Ideal city, that is to say of the modern
city.
The first in the history of civilisation.
Referring to this urbanistic project great capitals
were built like London, Madrid, St. Peterbourgy,
New York and at present new Shanghai (China) works
Milanese architects.
Pope Paolo II in 1465 elevated the Church of Santa
Maria Assunta to cathedral of Bishop of Luni.
Emperor Federico III confers title of city in
1469.
since 1984 - Mocchi Estate Agency
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