Monsummano Alto Castle
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The curtain walls of the castle. |
The Market gate |
Monsummano Alto can be reached by the highway A11 up to the exit of Montecatini, then
following indications for Monsummano Terme and from here those that bring us to the summit
of the relief where the rests of the castle rise.
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The only surviving tower, internal view. |
The origin of the castle of Monsummano, called today 'Alto' to distinguish
it from the suburb of Monsummano Terme growth at the base of the relief where
it rises, is not certain even if its elliptical form and its location make it
very similar to a strengthened Longobard
settlement. Crowning a hill of 340 meters high, the fortification dominates
the whole Valdinievole (Nievole Valley), whose bottom remained practically uninhabited
for the whole Middle Age due to its turn into a swamp. A document
of the 1105 mentions the castle for the first time, without doing its name,
sold by the abbot of the monastery of S.Antimo and S.Tommaso to the count Ildebrando,
and some historians identify in this the first certain trace of the existence
of Monsummano. The castle seems to have then belonged to the noble families
of Maona, Montecatini and Capraia. Certainly in 1128 the Bishop of Lucca acquired,
always from the abbot of S.Antimo, all the territories that the Abbey possessed
near Monsummano. From 1218 the castle results in possession of the commune of
Lucca, despite Monsummano was already constituted in free rural council.
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External view of the tower, with a particular pentagonal form. |
While Uguccione della Faggiola was Lord of Lucca, the relationships with
the near Florence embittered, flowing in a war, and in 1314 the Florentine army
occupied all the castles of the Valdinievole. But August 29th 1315 the Lucchese
army, headed by Castruccio Castracani, inflicted a heavy defeat to that of Florence
near Montecatini, forcing it to retire from the valley. At the death of Castruccio
Castracani, Monsummanno, together to other communes of the zone, entered to
belong to the 'Nievole Valley League' with the purpose to withstand Florence.
In 1331 Florence regained possession of Monsummano and a Florentine Podesta
was imposed to rule the town. With the exception of a rebellion in the year
1368, the whole Valdinievole stayed Florentine up to the reforms of last century.
Of the ancient fortified settlement today remains ample lines of its elliptic
walls, wide for around two kilometers and in more points wound by the vegetation,
and of two of the original gates: that one called of 'Nostra Donna' and that
'Del Mercato' on the opposite side. Of the many towers that crowned the fortified
enclosure only one, recently restored, still rise and its considered one
of the most beautiful and imposing of the area: it has a pentagonal plan and
the only access at the level of the second floor served once by a stair in timber.
The vertex of the pentagon forms the external front out of the walls. The only
testimony of the medieval architecture inside the enclosure is the Romanic-Gothic
church of S.Niccolò, although it has been object of various reconstructions.
The whole rest of the area lies in state of abandonment.
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