Pistoia

Pistoia (anc. Pistoria), a town of Italy, stands 21 miles by rail NW. of Florence, on a spur of the Apennines. Its streets are thoroughly Tuscan, and it is surrounded with walls, pierced by five gates, and has a citadel. The chief buildings are the cathedral of San Jacopo (12th and 13th centuries), containing a magnificent altar of silver (1286-1407) and several good pictures; the church of St Bartholomew, with a fine white marble pulpit by Guido of Como (1250); St Andrea, with Giovanni Pisano's pulpit (1301); St John, with a font by Giovanni Pisano and terra-cottas by Andrea della Robbia; the 14th-century communal palace; and other palaces. The principal manufactures are iron and steel wares, agricultural implements, paper, oil, and silk. But the town has the credit of having invented and first made pistols, and of having given them its name in the form pistola. Here Catiline was defeated in 62 B.C. The town was conquered by Florence and Lucca in 1306. Pop. 21,500.