Montepulciano is an Italian town of 13 673 inhabitants in the
province of Siena in Tuscany. The municipality is located 605 meters
above sea level, between the Valdichiana and the Val d'Orcia.
Of ancient and long history, Montepulciano has origins from the
Etruscan people starting from the 4th century BC.
It is also
famous for the wealth of excellent vineyards, from which the Vino
Nobile di Montepulciano DOCG is obtained.
Montepulciano rises in a vast hilly area of the Tuscan hinterland, in a dominant position with respect to the Valdichiana, once marshy. The municipal territory 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, which derives from the Latin Publicius (in turn of Etruscan origin), with the suffix -ānus which forms the adjective.
The inhabited center has the characteristics of an S-shaped medieval
village and is enclosed within three circles of walls, all built
around the 14th century.
Of Etruscan origin and founded,
according to the legend by Porsenna, Lucumone di Chiusi; some
documents and artifacts found in the Fortezza, date its existence
back to the IV-III 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, there was the
Sancta Mater Ecclesia in Castello 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 the witnesses, all from Montepulciano, were priests, clerics, a
doctor and a goldsmith, a sign of a high civil and cultural level.
In the twelfth century the Republic of Siena, wanting to subdue
Montepulciano, free and rich, began a series of wars, which the
Poliziani faced with the help of Perugia and Orvieto, but more
assiduously and with alternating results, with the support of
Florence.
At the beginning of the thirteenth century the
vitality of the city, promoted by the initiative of the mercantile,
manufacturing and agricultural bourgeoisie, 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, became Lords
of Valiano and tyrants of Montepulciano.
In 1390
Montepulciano made a permanent alliance with Florence, which wanted
to have a strategic stronghold south of Siena.
From the early
fifteenth to the mid-sixteenth century, Montepulciano had its own
golden period, 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 for only 28 days with the name of Marcello II.
In 1511, the Poliziani, having concluded the definitive peace
with the Florentines, engraved the following inscription on the door
and on the architrave of the council chamber: Recuperatio
Libertatis, A.D. 1511.
From 1559, with the submission of
Siena to the Medici principality, Montepulciano lost part of its
past strategic and political importance, but maintained its
prestige. Historical Polizian families of the Nobles, Tarugi,
Contucci, Bellarmino, Ricci, Cervini, Benci, Cini, Cocconi and
numerous others settled in Montepulciano, who gave great men to the
Church, to letters, to the arts and to arms: a supreme pontiff,
numerous cardinals, many dozen bishops, prominent prelates in large
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 be 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.
Upon the death of
Cardinal Giovanni Ricci, the Grand Duke Ferdinando left the
Capitanati of Montepulciano and Pietrasanta to the free government
of the Grand Duchess Christina of Lorraine who remained there until
her death in 1636. The Grand Duchess gave a lot of impetus to the
construction of the new Cathedral, where the Bishop Antonio Cervini,
in 1680 he was the first to celebrate the Pontifical and was
consecrated in 1712 by Bishop Francesco Maria Arrighi, who
consecrated the Church of the Gesù in 1714.
In 1700 the bishop Cervini also consecrated the Church of
Sant'Agnese and in 1714 the bishop Angelo Maria Vantini consecrated
the Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie.
In the eighteenth
century the Accademia degli Intrigati flourished, which, together
with literary activity, built a theater in 1793, in the large rooms
of the fifteenth-century Monte di Pietà, as it had previously done
in Via Collazzi and in the Palazzo Comunale.
The long Lorense
season marked for Montepulciano the beginning of a widespread
economic and social recovery. 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)
became the main agricultural market in the area, while
entrepreneurial activities slid towards the valley floor, attracted
by the railway (present since 1884) and the greater ease of
connection with the emerging Chiusi railway junction.
Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta
Church of San Biagio
Church
of the Gesù
Convent of San Francesco
Oratory of San Giovanni
Battista in Poggiolo
Church of Santa Lucia
Church of Santa
Maria dei Servi
Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie
Church of
Sant'Agnese
Church of Sant'Agostino
Convent of San Bernardo
Avignonesi Palace
Palazzo Bucelli
(with the base studded with Etruscan and Latin inscriptions)
Palazzo del Capitano
Cervini Palace by Antonio da Sangallo the
Elder
Palazzo Cocconi Del Pecora
Town Hall with a facade by
Michelozzo (late fourteenth century)
Contucci Palace, the work of
Antonio da Sangallo the Elder
Palazzo Gagnoni Grugni (with the
Vignolesco portal)
Palazzo Neri-Orselli (where the Civic Museum
is located)
Nobili-Tarugi Palace
Ricci Palace by Antonio da
Sangallo the Elder
Salimbeni Palace
Palazzo Sisti (where the
Piero Calamandrei library and archive is located)
Venturi Palace
House of the poet Angelo Poliziano in via del Poliziano n. 1
Logge del Grano
Medicean Fortress by Antonio da Sangallo the
Elder
Piazza Grande
Poliziano Theater
Clock Tower (with the
popular Pulcinella)
Rectory of San Biagio
Montepulciano Lake Nature Reserve