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Alinari

BRONZE CANDELABRA (15TH CENTURY)

The Pistoja of to-day is a prosperous and attractive city with good buildings, fine markets, and many industries; she has been noted from time immemorial for her skilled work in iron, bronze, and wood, and her ancient metal-work has been found in Germany and Athens. In her bronze foundries to-day she not only casts bells and small articles, but many statues and groups created by Italian artists are cast in Pistoja. The manufacture of carriages and fine organs is of great importance. The district has four paper-mills, and of the eleven brass foundries in the province five are situated at Pistoja, and many skilled workmen are employed in wood-carving, artistic ironwork, etc. Her trade is mainly in wine, oil, grain, paste alimentare, and cattle. The milk and butter of Pistoja are considered the best in Tuscany. To appreciate the varied productions and interests of the district of Pistoja you must wander about the Piazza del Duomo on market-day when it is filled with booths offering woolen, linen, and cotton stuffs, bright kerchiefs, shawls, shoes, and "notions," displayed in picturesque confusion and colour; a score of red, yellow, and green umbrellas in one corner, or a line of contadini overcoats of a warm brownish-red colour, trimmed with tawny fur and lined with green, delight the eye and are much in demand. Or walk through the Mercato, old as Pistoja herself, where the ancient well indicates the very centre of the first city. Here is certainly every object man can want, and the square blooms daily with all kinds of fresh vegetables and flowers: there are grains and food of every sort; in the season there are piles of yellow cocoons on the pavement; bright-faced old women are roasting chestnuts gathered on the mountain side; pretty baskets of fragrant wild strawberries are proffered by some handsome young girl, and the stall of some descendant of the old race of pistores is hung with rings of sweet, fresh pane nero (brown bread), while various kinds of cheese and the "best butter" await your choice. The markets for fish and meat are in different parts of the city.

Alinari