Certaldo is situated in the far west of the province of Florence, within the area known as Chianti, from where the famous wine comes from. Certaldo is a small city with a cute and well conserved old part raised on top of a small hill and made out entirely of red bricks, the so-called Certaldo Alto. Certaldo is commonly associated with Giovanni Boccaccio, the famous novelist, author of Il Decamerone, written in 1351. Boccaccio spent most of his life in Certaldo, where he also died, and in the Decamerone one can find a lot of references to places and people in and around Certaldo. To visit: The Palazzo Pretorio is the former government building with its stanza dei tormenti (torture-chamber) and its panoramic fortress tower.