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PRATO
17km
(10 miles) NW of Florence; 333km
(206 miles) N of Rome.
Prato is another of those cities that has been ignored by
tourists because of its proximity
to Florence. Yet it is one of
northern Tuscany's most open,
friendly, and energetic cities,
one with a modest storehouse of
valuable art treasures the
creators of which were Donatello
and Filippo Lippi. It also has a
dazzling collection of early
Renaissance altarpieces. The
city’s origins were probably as
an Etruscan encampment and open
market. This slowly developed into
a secure Lombard town in nine
hundred AD. Prato was always
prosperous trade center and was a
free commune from 1140 until 1351.
Florence then bought it from its
nominal lord and set it up as an
ally state. Prato is now the
region's fastest-growing city and
its inhabitants are hard-working,
practical people, who also know
how to roll up their sleeves and
enjoy themselves, with festivals,
lively bars, and what is perhaps
Tuscany's top theater.
One
of the oldest industries of Prato
is that of textiles and this has
been one of its most important
commercial enterprises from the
time of the middle ages.
Capitalism had an early start here
and the textile industry was the
source of the wealth of the
medieval millionaires like
Francesco Datili, the original
Merchant of Prato. It is still the
backbone of Pratese industry
today, though other light
businesses have developed
alongside it. This expanding
economic wealth has made the city
the thirs largest in Tuscany,
which in turn caused the regional
authorities to carve out a new
province in 1992, with Prato as
its capital
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