Brief history

The origin of Montignoso is lost in the distant medioevo, the first news goes up again in fact a year 753, when Astolfo, king of the Longobardis, gives Anselmo, founder and first abbot of the abbey of Nonantola to brother-in-law (MO), an olive-grove set in the proximities of the Castle Aghinolfi, whose oil had to serve to maintain the lights in the Church.
Surely the Castle or Fortitude, as the inhabitants of Montignoso prefer to call him/it, it has more ancient origins and has always been a point of essential reference in how much it represented a sure rampart to protection of the small villages set along the Channel of Montignoso.
I concern to the first inhabitants of our zone:
an ancient tradition would like that some pirates, disembarked on the beaches and pushed him toward the inside, they manufactured a called village Corsanico from their name, village retained now also by the inhabitants as the most ancient village of the montignosino;
another voice tells instead that toward the year 577 of the vulgar era, a column departed him by Luni Montignoso built for relegating to you the malefactors.
True or false that is these voices it is certain that when Luni for the invasions of the Barbarians and the unhealthiness of the climate slowly started to expire, many of his inhabitants looked for kindergarten on the near mountains, where I will dictate hand to build him huts and houses, “who knows that the simigliante didn't happen for Montignoso yet?” (G. Sforza - historical Memories of Montignoso).
Strongly it has been always the attachment of the Montignosinis to the religion that was not testified only from the Parish of St. Vito, that built before the year thousand, the beginnings of the eight hundred it was demolished to and it was found in the side toward Mass of our Cemetery that note of St. Vito is called, but also in other Churches and shed Oratories in the fractions of Huts, Plaza, Lawn, Cerreto, St. Eustachio and Vietina. Unfortunately the territory during the second world war had to bear for well seven months the aerial bombardments and the naval connoneggiamento of the Allies, and so of so many Churches it was only saved that of St. Eustachio and some other Chapel.
The actual Churches of St. Vito and Saint Maria of the Rosa and others are in fact approximate reconstructions of the preexisting ones.
To Montignoso it stays nevertheless the glory to have given the native to so many illustrious men: Niccolao Giorgini (1773-1854) for instance, that became even head of the Regency of the city of Lucca on behalf of Leopoldo II, Caesar Bertagnini (1827-1856), that distinguished him since young in the chemistry, wrote wise fundamental on the subject, Giovanni Sforza (1845-1922), historian and archivist of big talent and his/her child Charles Sforza (1872-1952) that, entered diplomacy in 1896, it covered numerous charges to the Cairo, to Paris, to Pechino, it is more times minister of the Foreign ones and in 1919 senator and ambassador it was named in Paris up to the advent of the fascism. To him the signature of important essays as that it is owed of Shave with the Yugoslavia and a strong contribution to the adhesion of Italy to the Plain Marshall and the Atlantic Pact; in 1948 it is still senator and it will die in this position to Rome.
To remember besides that in the hold valley that from the sea it goes up again toward the peak of the Apuanes Villa Schiff Giorgini it rises, a 800 noble residence with garden and statues of marble, today center of the Commune of Montignoso.
The family Giorgini has been one of the most prestigious of the place, symbol of an ancient nobility that has left the sign, with his more known exponents, in the political, cultural and scientific world of the time. We also remember Alexander Manzoni, whose Victoria gives birth she married the senator Giovan Baptist Giorgini.
Of that time the construction has remained, the game of the constructive plans and above all the park, that with its seculars plants it makes even more hospitable the place.

Arts and monuments:

The second altarpiece Renaissance present to Montignoso is that painted in the Church of St. Eustachio, and dated 1495 as everything today it is been able it clearly anchors to read along the false inferior step, that also brings notable fragments of the denominations of the Saints and from which two characters allow to stick out a foot according to the usual perspective artifice.
The subject is still that of the Virgo in throne with Child, with to the sides the Saints Eustachio, Giovanni Battista, Maddalena and Vito, reunited in an only table according to a more modern conception of the preceding trittico. The altar is composed then of a lunetta with an Eternal Father benedicente interposed among two Angels.
In the dais the circumstances of the Saint are represented Patron (Eustachio), with a deposition to the center and the Saints Paul and Pietro to the borders. These episodes are of effectiveness narrative ability, absorbed in ample landscapes. Fantastic circumstances of the life of the Saint read to you that involve animal representations, with the buck that brings the cross in the middle of the horns, the lion that not sbrana the family of the ex converted pagan, the metallic idol to form of bull I extract in which the protagonist was contained and martyred with the fire to be refused him to adore its sacred simulacro.
Both the painters, up to recent times more known with the conventional names of Teacher of Stratonice and Teacher of the immaculate Conception, are artists lucchesi, among the principals interpreters and popularizers of that diffused figurative language to Lucca in the second half the XV century, with lilts inferred by Botticelli, Ghirlandaio and Phillip Lippi.
In the same Church of St. Eustachio a splendid Madonna with Child wooden, datable within the first years of Three hundred, recently recognize to an artist of the entourage of Giovanni Pisano (Tub of Camaino) or perhaps of the same teacher.
It deals with a work realized with wide hits of gouge, graven of throw. The Madonna is sat and Child with a book in the left and the right in action of benediction, is standing, leaning on the leg of his/her/their mother that supports with the hand.
Over these works, of sure artistic value, the territory is also rich of “marginette” or “majesty” as the inhabitants they prefer to call her, of good merit, now all listed ones, witnesses of the walk and the religiousness of the man in the time.

The characteristic element of the territory, already frequented by the ancient Liguri-Apuanis, is represented from the castle Aghinolfi, mighty fortification altomedievale. The wise restaurations have brought the different phases of its construction that are today still visibli to the light and documented on the spot with explanatory panels.
Villa Schiff - Giorgini is instead a nineteenth-century residence frequented in passed by characters of the culture and the politics, among which Massimo of Azeglio. Today it entertains the town center and his great rich park of secular plants and statues of marble it is visitable.
Beltrame brings it testifies the passage of the Street Francigena and it characterizes the area as interesting earth of passage and border.
The Country can boast, among its works of particular artistic wealth, those preserved in Asked her: we have in fact in the parish Church of St. Vito and Modesto, situated in place it Places, a trittico of altar of the painter lucchese Michael Ciampanti of 1482, raffigurante the Madonna with his Child among the Saints Giovanni Battista, Vito, Modesto and Pietro.
The painted altar is a work of clear merit and quality, tipsy of clear beauty in the simplicity compositiva: a central compartment is present, with the Virgo in throne and a child of taste and Renaissance style with two side little angel of peer grace.

Pasquilio
Leaving to the shoulders S.Eustachio and Cerreto, crossing the absorbed road in the woods of chestnut trees, where easy to perceive hawks, buzzards, pheasants and foxes is, the Pasquilio is arrived to (800 meters altitude) where a panorama irripetibile can be enjoyed that spaces from the mountains to the sea.
From here the whole coast it is visible Apuoversiliese from Viareggio up to the promontory of Mountain Marcello, the island Palmaria and in the clearest and serene days you can be seen in distance the greatest islands of the Tuscan archipelago and even Corsica.
It deals with a zone montana very frequented for trips and walks.
This place was particularly beloved from Henry Pea, remembered by the citizen with a marmoreal bust, from the poets Giuseppe Ungaretti, Eugene Monta on her and from the painter Mino Maccari.
Behind the Pasquilio the stately Carchio mountain dominates, once center of cave of marble by now dams of which it preserves the candid color.
Surrounded by woods of chestnut trees and firs it is an ideal place for the scampagnates of whom comes here to look for a pò of refreshment in the warm summer days.
In the last world conflict this top was crossed by the Gothic Line, line of border among the German troops and Americans and theater of bloody clashes, that caused numerous losses both among the population, both among the partisan formations, constituted him after September 8.