Montopoli in Valdarno in Tuscany

The town of Montopoli in Valdarno is a centre between the rivers Egola and Chiecina, in the province of Pisa, with a population of about 8000 inhabitants. It keeps numerous medieval architectures that are perfectly preserved.

The parish of Momtopoli had been present since 746. In 924, the inhabitants of the village that developed around it were transferred to the military fortress that was born in the X century. The bishop of Lucca financed the construction of the upper part of the castle of Montopoli in the hope to safeguard the population from the repeated incursions of the Magyars and the Avars.
With time, the castle, that also the famous man of letters Giovanni Boccaccio cited, became one of the most important ones in the Valdarno for its strategic position and its imposing defensive structure. Originally under the dominion of the bishopric of Lucca, soon it became one of the strongholds that Lucca, Pisa and Florence contended most for. Initially, the city of the tower won and was able to withdraw the upper part of the castle to the German emperor Frederick I in 1162.
Numerous battles between the biggest Tuscan cities characterised the history of Montopoli. In 1222, after Pisa was defeated in Castel del Bosco, the Florentines obliged the sea faring republic to give the castle back to the bishop of Lucca. In 1274, Florence and Lucca besieged the town in the ambit of the fights between Guelphs and Ghibellines. In 1315, the Pisans led by Uguccione della Faggiola assaulted the fortress. Around the half of the XIV century, the inhabitants of Montopoli, tired of the repeated incursions by troops and outlaws, spontaneously annexed to Florence.
The Florentines worked immediately to improve the defensive structure of the territory. They built the tower of Giulia San Romano that the German bombardments destroyed in 1944. In 1432, a huge battle took place here and the Florentines pulled off a glorious victory over the troops of the Visconti that had come from Milan. At the end of the XV century, Montopoli went through the occupation carried out by the troops of Charles VIII. In 1512, the town hosted the great philosopher and man of letters Niccolò Macchiavelli. The remains of the Giulia Tower, of the San Matteo Tower, of the Arch of Castruccio and the upper part of the castle with a still visible medieval appearance, are the evidences of the militarization of the area of Montopoli, occurred between the X and the XV centuries.
Moreover, the parish of the saints Stefano and Giovanni and the oratories of San Sebastiano (1506) and of the Madonna del Soccorso, built in 1606, can be visited. The military importance of Montopoli went through a phase of progressive decline and the Grand Dukes of Tuscany stopped investing in the town's fortification.