Monsummano Terme in Tuscany

Monsummano Terme is in the province of Pistoia and has a population of about 20,000 inhabitants. The church of Santa Maria di Fontenuova (XVII century), the parish Museum, the oratory of San Carlo and the natural Thermal Caves of Giusti and Partanti can be admired in the town.

The hill where Monsummano Alto rises was first fortified in the XI century with the aim to control and garrison a wide area below it that was included between the morass of Fucecchio and part of the Valdinievole. The first historical source about the castle dates to 1005 and it tells about the cession of part of the fortress that then belonged to the Abbey of Sant'Antimo in Val d'Orcia to the feudatory Ildebrando degli Aldobrandeschi. The castle had many owners in the following years.
The town of Lucca bought the castle in 1218 despite its inhabitants had already issued their own autonomous statutes. Under the aegis of Lucca, the stronghold of Monsummano became the counterfort against Montevettolini that was instead controlled by the Florentines. Today, the castle is a cluster of houses inside the municipal territory and it was born in the XII century. It became a refuge for the exiles from Florence and from Lucca during the wars between Guelphs and Ghibellines.
In 1328, Montevettolini, that Uguccione della Faggiola submitted to Lucca then ruled by the Ghibellines, and Monsummano entered the League of the Valdinievole. Yet, the League that was born in an anti-Florentine function had to surrender to the Republic's war power that had increased after Lucca's submission. It was just the new ruler of Lucca, Gherardino Spinola, who besieged and conquered the two castles. In the Medicean age, the castle of Montevetolini became more and more important and enjoyed a period of prosperity also thanks to the fact that the Medici transformed it into one of their favourite bases to start battues. Instead, the castle of Monsummano began a phase of inexorable decline that was aggravated by the process of paludification of the XIV century caused by the Medici's little interest in this rural area. Nevertheless, at the foot of the hill the new village of Monsummano rose. In 1602, in effect, after a spring appeared prodigiously, the Grand Duke Ferdinando ordered the construction of the Sanctuary of Fontenuova and Monsummano Terme rose right here.
In 1775, in the frame of the territorial reforms settled by the Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo of Lorraine, the Delle Due Terre "comunitas" was born and it included the two castles and the new expanding village of Monsummano Terme that later became a chief town. One century later, the definitive taking off of the local economy derived from the discovery of the Thermal Caves, namely hot water and comfortable caves near which the modern plants rise today.