Category: Medieval Italy
Monteriggioni is a medieval walled town, standing on a hillock, built by the Sienese (Republic of Siena) between 1214 and 1219 as a stronghold up front during their conflicts with the Republic of Florence so as to command the Via Cassia, a key Roman road.
It mainly served as a defensive fortification and held off many attacks by the forces of the Republic of Florence as well as those of the Bishop of Volterra.
Yet, when the Sienese assigned Giovannino Zeti, exiled from Florence at the time, in command of the town’s garrison in 1554 he betrayed their trust handing over the keys of the town to the forces of the Medicis, a well-known banking and political family of Florence.
The effectively oval walls measure roughly 570m in perimeter, built between 1213 and 1219, and feature twelve towers quite evenly spread around, with two opposite gates directly connected via the straight main street of the town.
Porta Fiorentina, as the name implies, faces north towards Florence and while Porta Romana, likewise, opens south in the direction of Rome.
Nowadays, Monteriggioni is a commune that falls within the bounds of the province of Siena in Tuscany, central north Italy.
PS Monteriggioni seems to mean ‘boundary (green) hillock’ out of ‘monte,’ from Latin ‘montem’ (mount, green hillock), and ‘riggioni,’ which looks like a likely Tuscan variation of ‘reggioni’ (of the boundary, potentially dated).
Breaking through History 