Italy · 13th century
Monteriggioni is a comune in the province of Siena in the Italian region of Tuscany. The town is architecturally and culturally significant. It hosts several piazzas, and is referenced in Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. Monteriggioni borders the municipalities of Casole d'Elsa, Castellina in Chianti, Castelnuovo Berardenga, Colle di Val d'Elsa, Poggibonsi, Siena, and Sovicille.
Monteriggioni is a medieval walled town, located on a natural hillock, built by the Sienese in 1214–19 as a front-line defensive fortification in their wars against Florence, by assuming command of the Via Cassia running through the Val d'Elsa and Val Staggia to the west. It withstood many attacks from both the Florentines and the forces of the Bishop of Volterra.
In 1554, the Sienese put the town's garrison under the command of Giovannino Zeti, who had been exiled from Florence. In 1554, in an act of reconciliation with the Medicis, Florence's ruling family, Zeti simply handed the keys of the town over to their forces— considered a "great betrayal" by the townspeople.
The roughly circular walls, totalling a length of about 570 metres (1,870 ft) and following the natural contours of the hill, were built between 1213 and 1219. There are 14 towers on square bases set at equidistance, and two portals or gates. One gate, the Porta Fiorentina, opens toward Florence to the north, and the other, the Porta Romana, faces Rome to the south. The main street within the walls connects the two gates in a roughly straight line.
The main town square, the Piazza Roma, is dominated by a Romanesque church with a simple, plain façade. Other houses, some in the Renaissance style (once owned by local nobles, gentry, and wealthy merchants), face into the piazza. Off the main piazza smaller streets give way to public gardens fronted by the other houses and small businesses of the town. In more hostile times, these gardens provided vital sustenance when enemies gathered around the walls during sieges.
Text adapted from “Monteriggioni” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Monteriggioni ranks #52 of 9,079 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #4 of the 560 mapped in Italy. Founded 1214, it is older than 74% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 1080 atlas entries founded in the 13th century. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 37,135 times in the last 60 days, more than 99% of the atlas. 9 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Florence, 45 km away. It is one of the 43 landmarks on the atlas's regional map of Tuscany. See how Italy compares in the castle statistics.
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