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CASTEL SAN GIMIGNANO
Castel San Gimignano has been the last fort constructed in the territory of San Gimignano and for this reason some documents call it Castelnuovo (new castle). Its birth was due to an agreement of 1309 between the two towns of Volterra and San Gimignano — each of them would have had the right to build two castles to defend its own territory. San Gimignano built its one in about ten years, at the top of Montespeculo hill, about ten kilometres from the town — a great care was used and difensive shrewdnesses. A military settlement fortified by 400 metres walls and a fortress, where few years later even families went to live. Anciently this small territory was given by Arrigo VI to the Archbishop of Volterra Ildebrando Pannucchieschi in 1886. When San Gimignano obtained its control, many skinful knights were there to protect and command it, as Jacopo and Luca da Picchena. In 1432 there was the famous Moro di Bergamo and in 1452 Jacopo da Colle againts the Aragonese troops. From the original XIII century village there still is the main structure, some towers recently restored and a big part of the northern and western walls — which still appear powerful and elegant at the same time. Along the century these walls — expecially the western one — have been distorted by the many windows opened to give light to the inner houses. At the centre of the castle there still is the ancient bridge house. A curious legend links this small village to San Gimignano. It is told that the crows who live in the many towers of San Gimignano are the descendants of the crows used by Luca da Picchena to send messages from the village to the main town in case of troubles. Castel San Gimignano was anciently at the centre of the many fights between Volterra and San Gimignano, and even nowadays it inherits this destiny by the fact of being divided between the two districts of Colle Val d’Elsa and San Gimignano.
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