Description
Pistoia Sotterranea is a route beneath the centre of Pistoia, entered from the old Ospedale del Ceppo. You walk along the former bed of a stream, among arches and walls that show how the city grew, layer upon layer, from the Renaissance onwards.
The recovered stretch is 1,200 metres long, and 650 metres can be visited. You follow the course of the Gora di Scornio, covered over by the hospital buildings. Along the way you also enter the Ceppo's anatomical theatre, the neoclassical hall where the medical school taught anatomy on corpses.
This underground channel was originally the Brana stream, diverted as early as the Middle Ages. With the second ring of walls it became the moat running alongside the defences; when the third ring was built it was reduced to a gora, a channel that carried water into the city. The hospital was built on top of it.
The recovered stretch is 1,200 metres long, and 650 metres can be visited. You follow the course of the Gora di Scornio, covered over by the hospital buildings. Along the way you also enter the Ceppo's anatomical theatre, the neoclassical hall where the medical school taught anatomy on corpses.
This underground channel was originally the Brana stream, diverted as early as the Middle Ages. With the second ring of walls it became the moat running alongside the defences; when the third ring was built it was reduced to a gora, a channel that carried water into the city. The hospital was built on top of it.