Quarate is a village surrounded by extensive olive groves, probably of Roman origin. It gave name, around the year 1000 A.D., to the powerful and wealthy Quaratesi family.
At the site of the ancient fortress still stands a massive tower on top of which lives and grows an olive tree. Within a radius of a few hundred meters we find: the Court that was the old hospital for travelers who ventured on the via Maremmana founded in 1433; the oratory of San Giuliano; the castle and the palace from the Middle Ages and the characteristic tower with the olive tree about which we hear stories about the existence of mysterious underground secret passages: one could reach the palace, another could wind its way to the distant castle of the Da Gavignano.
About 40 years ago, on the dais of the main door of the palace a parchment dated 1523 was discovered in which was written that Mona Oretta and Mona Camilla Quaratesi had requested the door be made and had taken refuge in their castle to escape the plague and the imminent siege of Florence by the Spanish.
The nearby church of San Bartolomeo has a dais by Paolo Uccello with the L’adorazione dei Magi (Adoration of the Magi) and the honor of having had the parish priest, Father Raffaello Caverni for thirty years, from 1870 to 1900.
The Caverni (1837/1900) taught philosophy and mathematics at the seminary in Firenzuola, after which he was appointed to the parish of San Bartolomeo in Quarate.
In addition to fulfilling religious duties, he took charge of science, physics, astronomy, botany, geology, history and geometry. He had the idea of tools that someone then made in the future, such as the phonograph and the laser. In short, he was an an eclectic man who was friends with famous people like the Ximenian Filippo Cecchi, the mathematician John Antonelli and Father Barsanti, the inventor of the internal combustion engine.
Don Caverni has left us important scientific and literary works, such as History of the Experimental method in Italy and the Dictionary of Tuscan words and expressions in use in the Divine Comedy. He died of nephritis in Quarate and was buried in the small cemetery near the church.
In 1996, a new planet was discovered that has been baptized Caverni with the number 10591 of the solar system in honor of the priest from Quarate who was a follower of Galileo Galilei and who had a banned book for having professed Darwinist ideas.
Massimo Casprini
