Montecatini Val di Cecina is a small hilltown and ''

comune The (; plural: ) is a local administrative division of Italy, roughly equivalent to a township or municipality. It is the third-level administrative division of Italy, after regions ('' regioni'') and provinces (''province''). The can also ...

'' in the

province of Pisa The province of Pisa ( it, provincia di Pisa) is a Provinces of Italy, province in the Tuscany region of central Italy. Its capital is the city of Pisa. With an area of and a total population of 421,642 (), it is the second most populous and fif ...

Tuscany Tuscany ( ; it, Toscana ) is a Regions of Italy, region in central Italy with an area of about and a population of about 3.8 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence (''Firenze''). Tuscany is known for its landscapes, history, art ...

(central

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

). Located approximatively south of

Pisa Pisa ( , or ) is a city and ''comune'' in Tuscany, central Italy, straddling the Arno just before it empties into the Ligurian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa. Although Pisa is known worldwide for its leaning tower, the cit ...

, the medieval town sits on the Poggio la Croce hill overlooking the Cecina Valley and the larger hilltown of

Volterra Volterra (; Latin: ''Volaterrae'') is a walled mountaintop town in the Tuscany region of Italy. Its history dates from before the 8th century BC and it has substantial structures from the Etruscan, Roman, and Medieval periods. History Volter ...

, which lies just away. Local agriculture and the old copper mine provided Montecatini Val di Cecina with a degree of prosperity in the early Middle Ages. Like many Tuscan hilltop towns, its medieval aspect has been preserved precisely because lack of economic development. Today, Montecatini Val di Cecina is enjoying a small economic revival through tourism though on a modest scale.

Economy

The mines

Since the Etruscan, the history of Montecatini Val di cecina is closely related with its copper mine which remained operational until 1907 and it is now converted to a museum. The town has given name to one of the biggest mining industries in Europe in the early 20th century, the ''Montecatini - General Society for the Mining and Chemical Industry'' (Italian ''Montecatini - Società Generale per l'Industria Mineraria e Chimica''), which later merged in the more famous

Montedison Edison S.p.A. is an Italian electric utility company headquartered in Milan. The company was established in 1884 and acquired by Electricité de France in 2012. Edison employs more than 5,000 people in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. C ...

. Other subsoil resources in the area were salt,

alabaster Alabaster is a mineral or rock that is soft, often used for carving, and is processed for plaster powder. Archaeologists and the stone processing industry use the word differently from geologists. The former use it in a wider sense that includes ...

chalcedony Chalcedony ( , or ) is a cryptocrystalline form of silica, composed of very fine intergrowths of quartz and moganite. These are both silica minerals, but they differ in that quartz has a trigonal crystal structure, while moganite is monoclinic. ...

lignite Lignite, often referred to as brown coal, is a soft, brown, combustible, sedimentary rock formed from naturally compressed peat. It has a carbon content around 25–35%, and is considered the lowest rank of coal due to its relatively low heat ...

and

geothermal energy Geothermal energy is the thermal energy in the Earth's crust which originates from the formation of the planet and from radioactive decay of materials in currently uncertain but possibly roughly equal proportions. The high temperature and pres ...

History

Montecatini Val di Cecina was first settled by ancient

Etruscans The Etruscan civilization () was developed by a people of Etruria in ancient Italy with a common language and culture who formed a federation of city-states. After conquering adjacent lands, its territory covered, at its greatest extent, rou ...

, who populated the nearby city of

. Later it served as a

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

look-out post as it overlooks what was a busy Roman road. The castle and tower that dominate the town were built in the Middle Ages by Filippo Belforti, whose family ruled the territory for about a century. By the 11th century, Montecatini Val di Cecina was in the Catholic parish administered from nearby Gabretto. In 1351, the area came under the rule of the

Bishop of Volterra The Diocese of Volterra ( la, Dioecesis Volaterrana) is a Roman Catholic ecclesiastical territory in Tuscany, central Italy. It is a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Pisa.Republic of Florence The Republic of Florence, officially the Florentine Republic ( it, Repubblica Fiorentina, , or ), was a medieval and early modern state that was centered on the Italian city of Florence in Tuscany. The republic originated in 1115, when the Flo ...

(later

Grand Duchy of Tuscany The Grand Duchy of Tuscany ( it, Granducato di Toscana; la, Magnus Ducatus Etruriae) was an Italian monarchy that existed, with interruptions, from 1569 to 1859, replacing the Republic of Florence. The grand duchy's capital was Florence. In th ...

), to which it belonged until the

unification of Italy The unification of Italy ( it, Unità d'Italia ), also known as the ''Risorgimento'' (, ; ), was the 19th-century Political movement, political and social movement that resulted in the Merger (politics), consolidation of List of historic stat ...

in 1861.

Main sights

Inside the village walls, which feature cylindrical towers around the perimeter, medieval buildings are tightly spaced, separated by narrow streets or alleys, and a few small piazzas. The town is dominated by the Belforti tower. Other buildings include the ''Palazzo Pretorio'', with an elegant porch that runs underneath a cross-ribbed vaulted roof supported by six Ionian columns, and San Biagio built in the romanesque -

gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

style during the 14th Century. The church has an asymmetrical shape with a very plain portal facing a side street. The church is divided by a central nave with two side aisles separated by columns. Nearby there is the ''

frazione A ''frazione'' (plural: ) is a type of subdivision of a ''comune'' (municipality) in Italy, often a small village or hamlet outside the main town. Most ''frazioni'' were created during the Fascist era (1922–1943) as a way to consolidate territ ...

'' (village) of Querceto, with the Romanesque parish church ''Chiesa San Giovanni''. A fortified tower is on a hill offering a view of the country stretching toward

and the

Tyrrhenian Sea The Tyrrhenian Sea (; it, Mar Tirreno , french: Mer Tyrrhénienne , sc, Mare Tirrenu, co, Mari Tirrenu, scn, Mari Tirrenu, nap, Mare Tirreno) is part of the Mediterranean Sea off the western coast of Italy. It is named for the Tyrrhenian pe ...

, is the village of La Sassa. An old copper mine lies between two other old villages, Casaglia and

Gello Gello ( grc, Γελλώ), in Greek mythology, is a female demon or revenant who threatens the reproductive cycle by causing infertility, miscarriage, and infant mortality. By the Byzantine era, the () were considered a class of beings. Women bel ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Montecatini Val Di Cecina Cities and towns in Tuscany Hilltowns in Tuscany