As we mentioned in an article last month (here) probably the finest example of Florentine renaissance architecture in Barga, the Palazzo Angelio in Barga Vecchia was finally getting some renovations to its world weary and damaged façade which for many years had be reduced to a kind of “peek a boo, now you see me, now you don’t” game with parts of its delicate decorations desperately trying to show through from underneath the terrible grey pebble dash finish that was slapped all over it some time in the recent past. Maybe just maybe, it will finally get to take its rightful place as probably the finest building in Barga Vecchia.
This week work started on building the scaffolding around the piazza – the project is off and running. Hopefully the work will be completed in double quick time as the visitors to Barga have already started to arrive with Piazza Angelio the premier location for live entertainment during the summer with live music concerts from Barga Jazz and others.
As we also wrote in that article, there were one or two doubts about the project as two residents of Palazzo Angelio, and who would in theory be paying part of the costs of the exercise along with the other residents inside the palazzo professed little knowledge of the project or design being offered. Below we offer an artists impression of just how the finished piazza might look .
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This piazza, once known as Piazza Aiaccia, owes its present name to two buildings built by the Angeli family, who were reknown for producing poets, writers, prelates and soldiers. The most famous of these, Pietro Angeli (1512-1573), also known by his knickname “Bargeo”, was a poet, a soldier and a professor of Greek and Latin at the University of Pisa.
One of the Angeli buildings on this piazza was formerly the home of the journalist, writer and typographer Pietro Groppi (1831 – 1908), who wrote a biography of Pietro Angelio and founded the weekly newspaper “The Serchio Echo” and which now houses the barganews and barga jazz offices and the barganews book exchange.