Montepulciano

Montepulciano it's a Italian town of 13 775 inhabitants of the province of Siena in Tuscany. The municipality is placed at 605 meters above sea level, straddling the Valdichiana and the Val d’Orcia.

Of ancient and long history, Montepulciano has origins from the people of Etruscans from 4th century BC.

It is also famous for the wealth of excellent vineyards, from which the Nobile di Montepulciano wine DOCG.

Montepulciano rises in a large hilly area of ​​the Tuscan hinterland, in a dominant position with respect to the Valdichiana, once swampy. The municipal area extends in the south-eastern sector of the region on the border with Umbria and not far from Lazio. Montepulciano is a compound of Monte and Policiano, Polciano or Pulciano. It is a predial name, which therefore concerns land or rustic villages, che deriva dal Latin public (in turn of Etruscan origin), with suffix -ānus which forms the adjective

The inhabited center has the characteristics of a medieval village in the shape of “S” and is enclosed within three circles of walls, all built around the 14th century.

Of Etruscan origin and founded, according to the legend from Porsenna, Lucumone of Chiusi; some documents and artifacts found in the Fortress, their existence dates back to the 4th-3rd century BC. In Roman times it was the seat of an army placed to defend the consular roads. It was evangelized by San Donato, bishop of Arezzo in the 4th century.

In the place of the current Church of the Madonna di San Biagio, esisteva la Mother Church in the Castle Pulliciano, so in a document of 715 in the Lombard period it experienced its first development; in fact, in some notarial deeds of the Archive of the Abbey of SS. Salvatore sull'Amiata, there are documents including one from 806 and witnesses, all of Montepulciano, they were priests, clerics, a doctor and a goldsmith, a sign of a high civil and cultural level.

In the XII century the Republic of Siena wanted to subdue Montepulciano, free and rich, started a series of wars, that the Poliziani faced with the help of Perugia and Orvieto, but more assiduously and with mixed results, with the support of Florence.

At the beginning of the thirteenth century the vitality of the city, promoted by the resourcefulness of the merchant bourgeoisie, manufacturing and agricultural, he began to attract the sights of Florence and Siena.

The fourteenth century was marked by strong disputes for power between the major families; a relative stability occurred under the Del Pecora family who, divided within them in supporting Florence, Siena or Perugia, they became Lords of Valiano and tyrants of Montepulciano.

In 1390 Montepulciano was firmly allied with Florence, who wanted to have a strategic stronghold south of Siena.

From the early fifteenth to the mid-sixteenth century, Montepulciano had its own golden age, marked by political stability, cultural prestige, artistic flowering.

The fifteenth century was the era of the humanist Bartolomeo Aragazzi, apostolic secretary of Pope Martin V and of the poet Angelo Poliziano. An exceptional building fervor marked the sixteenth century: architects such as Antonio da Sangallo the Elder, Jacopo Barozzi known as Vignola, Baldassarre Peruzzi, Ippolito Scalza erected sumptuous patrician residences, splendid churches and various points of the urban center were embellished.

During this period, Cardinal Marcello Cervini lived, who sat on the papal throne alone 28 days with the name of Marcellus II.

In 1511, the Poliziani, final peace with the Florentines concluded, they engraved the following inscription on the door and lintel of the council chamber: The recovery of freedom, A.D. 1511.

From the 1559, with the submission of Siena to the Medici principality, Montepulciano lost part of its past strategic and political relevance, but it maintained its prestige. Historical Polizian noble families settled in Montepulciano, Tarugi, Contucci, Bellarmino, Ricci, Cervini, Hate, Cini, Cocconi and numerous others, who gave great men to the Church, all easier, to the arts and weapons: a supreme pontiff, numerous cardinals, many dozen bishops, distinguished prelates in great numbers and a great number of men who were excellent in many disciplines. One of his most affectionate sons, Cardinal Giovanni Ricci, in 1561, obtained from Pope Pius IV, with the consent of the Grand Duke, that Montepulciano was decorated with the episcopal seat and the title of the city. Montepulciano thus obtained the elevation to episcopal seat and the subsequent demolition of the ancient parish church was carried out to build the imposing cathedral (1594) on a project by Ippolito Scalza and according to the principles of the Counter-Reformation, of which one of the emeritus fathers was the Poliziano Cardinal Roberto Bellarmino.

On the death of Cardinal Giovanni Ricci, the Grand Duke Ferdinando left the Captains of Montepulciano and Pietrasanta to the free government of the Grand Duchess Christina of Lorraine who remained there until her death, which took place in 1636. The Grand Duchess gave a lot of impetus to the construction of the new Cathedral, where the Bishop Antonio Cervini, in 1680 was the first to celebrate the Pontifical and was consecrated in 1712 by Bishop Francesco Maria Arrighi, than in 1714 consecrated the Church of the Gesù.

In 1700 Bishop Cervini also consecrated the Church of Sant'Agnese and in 1714 Bishop Angelo Maria Vantini consecrated the Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie.

In the eighteenth century the Accademia degli Intrigati flourished, that, together with literary activity, built in 1793 a theater, in the large rooms of the fifteenth-century Monte di Pietà, as he had done previously in Via Collazzi and in the Palazzo Comunale.

The long Lorense season marked the beginning of a widespread economic and social recovery for Montepulciano. The reclamation of the Valdichiana favored the agricultural recolonization of the fertile valley floor; the consequent reorganization of the road system facilitated commercial contacts. With the Unification of Italy, Montepulciano (which then passed from the province of Arezzo to that of Siena) established itself as the main agricultural market in the area, while the entrepreneurial activities slipped towards the valley floor, attracted by the railway (present since 1884) and the greater ease of connection with the emerging Chiusi railway junction.