Brief history:

The castle:

The fortification, delimited by an ample surrounded building post-medieval, introduces a complex inside articulation constituted by a residential area, the old suburb, and from a military area characterized more properly by the presence of the mastio.
The panoramic road that conducts to Narrow passage from Montignoso crosses the whole hill on which the castle Aghinolfi rises.
In proximity of the top, a street excavated door directly to the imposing ruins of the castle, of which it appears, in the middle of the rich vegetation, a big spur: the extreme point north of the strengthened complex. Here a guardiola was situated supported today still by some mensolonis visible while, inside the rampart, a tower is found to basic semicircolare.
The road of access coasts along the bastion, realized on a wall of rock. E' on this side, to a distance of around 50 meters from the spur, that the entry is found to the castle, anciently defended by a bertesca.
It is entered therefore inside the first courtyard delimited by an ample surrounded building with towers of fiancheggiamento. o cortile delimitato da un'ampia cinta muraria con torri di fiancheggiamento.
Inside this courtyard they were situated numerous buildings, used as shelters by the inhabitants of Montignoso, in case of danger. Possible E' to perceive today still some traces of these modest structures. Proceeding in south direction, after having overcome a double curve, the road reaches the tall part of the castle, through a run directly dug in the rock and sheltered toward sea from a parapet.
At the end some ramp was a door, today more visible, protected from a bridge drawbridge, which conducted in the most inside part in the castle, a second courtyard on whose perimeter is been set numerous residences. Crossed this door it was on the left the plaza of weapons, of form to triangulate, countersigned by a walk of watch supported by numerous arcs and dominated by the mastio, a big base united octagonal building to a tower to circular base through a building curtain.
This so articulated element constitutes the south side of the plaza of weapons, where possible to notice some rests of a modest chapel castrense is, to rectangular base.
The more interesting architectural element of the strengthened complex is the big octagonal building, recognizable also as the most ancient. For how much the written documentation attests the presence of a work already strengthened in the VIII century, the octagonal structure is chronologically assignable to the first centuries of the low medioevo and seems to reveal some characters as the horizontal division to gangs bicromatiche and the inside dimensions of the structure, typical of military architectures not only but also residential.
Through a building curtain the octagonal structure was connected to the tower to circular base, defined in the documentation as "rampart of St. Paolino." To this complex it was entered through a situated retractable staircase between the embankment and the octagonal plant, subsequently replaced by a scaletta in masonry, visible in the nineteenth-century representations and currently more existing. Once climbed on the embankment, it is possible to access the rampart of St. Paolino.
The "baluadro of St. Paolino" it is countersigned from the presence of rests of battlement and from a staircase to snail that, going down inside the structure, it conducts to an ample opening from which the outside of the boundaries could be checked. From the embankment the inside of the base octagonal building is reached.
This structure, internally defined in the documentation as "rampart of St. Francis", it is countersigned by the presence of a circular tower, on which burdens partly the load of once ring finger it continues that discharge, the other half its weight, on the masonry perimetrale. The time, preserved only partly, it supports a plain calpestabile, a terrace, while the circular tower, not properly concentric, it overcame in height the base octagonal building developing the functions proper of a tower of sighting. Proper E' the ample visibility, that from the top of Castle Aghinolfi is extended by the Tuscan coast up to the coast Ligure, to characterize this important fortification.
Inside the architectural complex I am individuabili structures moments different historical risalenti.
The octagonal tower seems referable to the first centuries of the low medioevo Recent datings happened on coal fragments included in the mortar would assign the construction to an inclusive period among half the century XI and half the century XII. In that period the castle Aghinolfi was only constituted from the big tower, that acquitted at the same time to the functions of defense and probably of abode. Among the ruins they properly are not appreciable rests of fourteenth-century structures, but it can be attributed some interventions of reimbursement of the masonries of the plant to this period to octagonal base. The castle seems to heavily have been modified in the century XV, to which you/he/she could go up again the architectural aspect that currently countersigns him/it. A big tower to circular base, together to an embankment, it had the specific role to defend in the slope the ancient octagonal structure, that assumed the function of mastio climb on. The complex was composed so of an ample strengthened perimeter, defined in the sources written as first procintos, and of a second procinto. The documentation of the XVI century reports some existence of numerous residences, around 130, existing in the two procintis, of which It's visible only the foundations today. The houses had been erect from the Montignosinis as I shelter in case of danger and for this motive they preserved alimentary commodities, wine, oil and dry meat. In 1585 the tall part of the mastio was demolished, retained more dangerous than useful.
At the end of five hundred it goes up again the setup of the plaza of weapons, realized through the demolition of the buildings adjacent to the mastio and, probably, the construction of the wall east perimetrale, with the walk of watch and the accesses in the underground corridor.
The importance of the fortitude of Montignoso, at the end of the century XVI and to the beginnings of the XVII, it was such for the Lucchesis to ask above all for further interventions fortifiers to protect the turned side to rising, where hostile artilleries would have been able to inflict serious damages; nevertheless the construction of new masonries would be cost a huge sum, equal to three thousand shields, and an entrusted errand preferred to spend a modest figure to already strengthen those existing.
News of interventions don't be had subsequently realized in the castle to the century XVII and the same fell in downfall toward half the century XVIII.
Charles Lodovico of Borbone, Mr. of Lucca, it acquired to recover it, but its project didn't go to good end.
Recent searches completed in these years on the castle have relighted the interest for the monument and you have hocked the Town administration of Montignoso in a conspicuous intervention of recovery and exploitation. The archaeological searches and archeometriche, behaviors of equal footstep with the jobs of restauration, have allowed the discovery of some important testimonies and the acquisition of specific knowledges on the medieval constructive techniques. Particularly the investigations, still in progress, you/they have shown the rests of a building structure, perhaps quadrangular, preexisting to that octagonal, dated, through technical archeometriche, to the epoch carolingia. The results of the searches and the results of the restaurations are united in a permanent exposure related to the history of the castle.

top page