Every design for Pistoia

Dante put Pistoia in the Inferno: Vanni Fucci, a violent member of the city's Black faction, calls it his worthy lair. The feuds between Black and White Guelphs that earned it that line belong to a medieval town that had declared itself a free commune and filled itself with walls, palaces and churches, a centre that survives remarkably well today. Pistoia also gave the church a pope, Clement IX of the Rospigliosi family, and one theory even traces the word pistol to the guns first made here.

The city lies at the north-western end of the plain it shares with Florence and Prato, crossed by the Ombrone Pistoiese on its way to the Arno. That position and the mild climate made it famous across Europe for its plant nurseries, while inside the walls the Cattedrale di San Zeno, the Battistero di San Giovanni in Corte and the Pieve di Sant'Andrea hold the old town together.

If you are from Pistoia, wear it the way the city has always been: proud, a little quarrelsome and surrounded by green.