Monteriggioni (Tuscany)

Monteriggioni is a town in the province of Siena, in Tuscany. The town is architecturally and culturally significant; it hosts several piazzas, and is referenced in Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. The roughly circular walls, totalling a length of about 570 metres (1,870 ft) and following the natural contours of the hill, were built between 1213 and 1219. The fourteen towers we still see today were used in Middle Ages to patrol the area, overlooking the Cassia road and two doors, the Porta di San Giovanni that opens in the direction of Florence to the north and the Porta Franca to the south. Porta Franca owes its name to the Via Francigena because Monteriggioni was (and still is) a major stop on this pilgrim trail from Cantebury to Rome. The main piazza, the Piazza Roma, is dominated by a Romanesque church with a simple, plain façade. Other houses, some in the Renaissance style (once owned by local nobles, gentry and wealthy merchants) face into the piazza. Off the main piazza smaller streets give way to public gardens fronted by the other houses and small businesses of the town.