Original of the Austro-Hungarian cultural area, the idea of Kaffeehaus was conceived as a recreational space that provided for a garden and rooms used for parties and receptions. In Tuscany it spread between the late 18^th and 19^th centuries, with the arrival of the Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo di Lorena. In Peccioli, the Kaffeehaus has found its place in an area locally known as “il giardino”, between the ancient Porta Volterrana and via di Lambercione, with a panoramic view over the countryside of Le Serre. The neoclassical style building was built in the early 1800s and was one of the properties of the family Dufour Berte.

Some constructions near this building have been recovered to create a panoramic new structure, a “window” overlooking the entire property Fondi Rustici, clear example of Tuscan flair. Here the artist Mariella Bettineschi installed Tribute to Benozzo Gozzoli, re-elaborating the Tabernacle, the work that the Florentine artist realized in the hamlet of Legoli.

Bettineschi’s is a complex and multifaceted world, which allows us to take our existence to a different period of time, presenting it as a promise of future. Memory and future are periods and themes that are reassembled in a continuous flow and reworked in different forms.

Near the entrance to Caffè Haus is an equipped picnic area.

Hidetoshi Nagasawa, Descending Column, 1991, burnished bronze, Peccioli, Via Carraia

Hidetoshi Nagasawa was born in Manchuria in 1940 and forced to flee with his family to Japan during the Second World War; after approaching the Neo-Dada group and the Gutai group, in the 1980s he became interested in and investigated on the possible relationships between sculpture and the environment, culminating in a production of proper installations in the following decade. The work in Peccioli is a burnished bronze column with a ten-pointed star section, deprived of the usual function of structural support, located where via Bastioni bends into via Carraria. Suspended, almost embraced by the contiguous and converging walls of the alley, it is firmly anchored to the medieval town walls by a thick steel cable. The temporal and spatial suspension of the work is emphasized by the ancient architecture housing it, undermining the consequentiality of events. Nagasawa says: “I have walked around in Peccioli several times and I liked it a lot. So, I intended to respect it. First of all, I said to myself that I should not disturb it with one of my works and I had to look for the most hidden, least striking place. I thought I would produce my work and then I would leave again, while the citizens of Peccioli would see it every morning; and let’s say, what if they did not like it, or, even if it was beautiful in itself, what if it was not successfully integrating with the environment? It would have been a hardship for them to see it continuously. So, I clearly worked in the opposite way of what has been the basis of the concept of a monument”.

“The Descending Column by Hidetoshi Nagasawa is an event that takes place right in the body of the form, or better, in one of the clearest forms, almost an archetype. The work acts as a storage of its own figures; it is movement and rest at the same time, something that has an architectural sense without architecture. It is suspended there, absorbed in the expectation of being able to establish a place where mankind can «poetically live».”

The work is part of the project “Species of spaces” (1991-1992) in which the artists Vittorio Messina, Vittorio Corsini and Hidetoshi Nagasawa were invited to work in Peccioli, taking into account the social impact of the project and dealing with places and landscapes to create works that are coherent with the context.

More info: Archive of Fondazione Peccioliper

Federico De Leonardis, Bastone, 1996, brick engraving, Peccioli, via Bastioni

Bastone by Federico De Leonardis depicts a walking stick carved into the bricks. The stick is the typical support for elderly walkers, the scratch in the wall seems to eternalize this indispensable companion, which in our imagination recreates the multiple walks along the same street. This furrow encloses the act of walking, crystallizes it forever. It immobilizes the action of walking but at the same time repeats it endlessly.