Borgo and Sottosante District

Here the “stones speak” and you can breathe history, as it’s the District that houses some of the city’s most important places: Piazza San Rocco, with its historic Fountain and Palazzo Cozza Caposavi, the small and delightful theater known as Piccolo Teatro Cavour and the Cavour Exhibition Hall.
Above all, it’s here you can find charming little shops, true artisan workshops and characteristic restaurants created inside spaces carved into the stone.
Nestled within all this is the Sottosante neighborhood, which can be considered the true historic center since the inhabited houses today are the old perimeter walls of the city, and if you close your eyes it’s not difficult to imagine life throughout ancient history.

The houses here were born from historic and important buildings, such as the “first old hospital” and the Church of Saints Cosma and Damiano (of which only the apse remains today), from which the neighborhood takes its name. “Sottosante” in fact comes from the union of two words: “sotto i Santi,” meaning “below the Saints,” or “below the Church of the Saints.”
In that place indeed Giovanni de’ Medici, second son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, had a Church built dedicated to the two twin doctors who never wanted money or goods in exchange for their practice and died as martyrs under the empire of Diocletian.

It’s in this part of town that a charm to be fully experienced is concentrated.