CONCLUSIONS

The development of Europe and its differentiation from the rest of the world begin in the Middle Ages with the urban revolution. In the Tenth century, when the great invasions of the Vikings, Saracens and Hungarians ceased, the agricultural production, exchanges and commerce find a new boost. Europe - that Arab travellers considered as a wild, uncivilized and uncultured land, that is to say an "underdeveloped country" - is now ready to start an adventurous journey to become the dominating continent over the whole globe and the hearth of development throughout the following centuries.

This fascinating process occurs in a territory whose boundaries are protected by armoured knights and, internally, by an articulated system of castles. Still, the core of the recovery is the revival of the town, mainly of the textile town.

Of course, there are also bank and maritime towns producing arms and tools, but the bearing axle of the recovery is still represented by the network composed of textiles centres, as in the Flanders, e.g. Gand, Ypres, Bruges and Cambrais, or as in the centre and northern Italy, e.g. Florence, Lucca, Genoa and Prato. Nowadays, a few centuries later, the outline has thoroughly changed. In the age of globalization, the old textile towns have transformed themselves, losing their specificity while incrementing their activities and functions. But, since then, Prato has always remained a textile town. Thanks to its geographical position that makes it the junction between the north and south of the peninsula, the town has managed to renew its production obtaining in this field prestige and fame that have crossed European boundaries.

But the great ability to renew itself and the energy proved while overcoming the various crises (both features were underlined by the famous historian Fernand Braudel) have not prevented Prato from fully preserving its medieval structures, churches, convents, walls and the ruling palaces. Visiting Prato today - a lively and dynamic town - means encountering the signs of a history that represents the symbol of development of the entire Europe. It also means looking at the future into which the town casts itself with that "Italian Style" that Braudel indicated as a new Renaissance, in which the work of art is no longer produced singularly for the Maecenas, but mass-produced for a high number of people.

A high-quality mass-production originating from the merchant medieval functionality, as well as from the beauty of architectures and works of art thriving in the Renaissance that changed deeply not only the towns but also the agricultural landscape, where the funds and mentality of merchants rationalized the production creating the farm-holding system.

"The most moving landscape of the world" - as Braudel defined it - fruit of the combination between "functionality and beauty", being the detonator of the peculiar industrial development occurred "not in the Manchester style", that from the second half of the Eighteenth century will relaunch Prato after centuries of crisis. Another strong element that contributed to the development of Prato was the solidarity spur introduced by the Mendicant Orders - Dominican and Franciscan - that acted as a social "absorber", avoiding the collapse of the town structure.

Originating from the dramatic contradictions of the town planning, and as a response to the disruptiveness of the heretical movements, the mendicants had an important role of welfare services funding confraternities and tertiaries from which mutual aid associations, unions and cultural institutions derive.

A complex cultural and charitable frame that represents the fertile ground for the subsequent development of the town. These features of Prato are portrayed in a fresco located on the ground floor of the Praetorian Palace, representing the town dominated by a protecting Christ with two saints and two benefactors at the sides. On the right, Francesco di Marco Datini, with the symbol of the "Ceppo", the charitable institution that supported the town over the centuries with its enormous wealth of merchant origin. Behind the merchant, St. John the Baptist, the patron saint of wool art.

On the other side, the protomartyr Stephen, the patron saint of the town. Opposite St. Stephen, there is Michael - the pilgrim who brought the Belt of the Virgin Mary to Prato from the Holy Land - with a little box containing the relic: bulwark of the town and complex symbol of identity, independence, defence and solidarity.
The Sacred Belt is a textile symbol for its deep and ancient connections with the weaving, strongly linked to agriculture and the town, and the feminine divinities full of mercy and love.
Pausania tells that sixteen small towns of Elide gathered in a congregation appointed sixteen wise and respectable women to weave - as a symbol of this political bond - the mantle of the statue of Era, the patron saint of agreement.