The Castle Oliveto is a fortified villa built in the XV century by a wealthy Florentine family. They built it in order to protect their wide possessions, in order to use it as a refuge in times of insurrections and in order to have a country house where to relax.
It is situated near the brook Pescaiola, which is a tributary of the river Elsa, few kilometres south-west of Castelfiorentino.
In 1424 the owner began to build this battlemented and many-towered building.In 1512 Bishop Guerguense, who was Emperor Massimiliano’s ambassador in Florence, was given hospitality at the Castle.In the years 1529-1530, during the battle in defence of the last Florentine Republic, the Castle Oliveto was one of the Imperialists’ strongholds. In fact the owners of the Castle were on Pope Clemente VII’s side who wanted his family (Medici) to rule Florence again. In October 1529 Francesco Ferrucci, who was the Republican commissary general in Empoli, tried to seize the Imperial commissary who was travelling between Oliveto and Castelfiorentino. He did not succeed in seizing him even though he had received detailed information from a spy “soldata in quelle bande”.
Castelfiorentino was defeated, but Oliveto remained the centre of all the imperialistic manoeuvres in Valdelsa. Francesco Ferrucci got angry because he had not seized Captain Santi from Castelfiorentino “creato de’ Pucci” who “si trova in Uliveto”, and he wrote a letter to his masters in Florence “vostre Signorie sappino che per me si è usato ogni diligenza di averlo nelle mani; et se lo pigliavo levavo la briga a quelle”.
After the fall of the Florentine Republic the Castle of Oliveto lost its military function and became a rich holiday resort. In 1538 Pope Paolo III Farnese stopped here. Cardinal Lorenzo Pucci gave hospitality to the humanist Benedetto Lampridio who wrote a Latin ode (“Ad Olivetam villam Laurentii Pucci”) in order to thank that patron of arts for his kindness.
In July 1944 Oliveto became a military post again. In fact during the retreat of Wehrmacht towards the river Arno, Oliveto found itself at the centre of the sector of operation 29 Panzer Grenadier Division of General Fries and it became the seat of the tactical headquarters of the 71st armoured grenadier regiment, near the point of union with the 10th regiment.
The German soldiers found a lot of pictures coming from the Galleria degli Uffizi in the Castle. They did not steal them but they sent them back to Florence, in order to save them from the allies’ bombardments (indians and moroccans).
4Tourism s.r.l Via S.Antioco 70 - 56021 Cascina (PI) Codice Fiscale 01618980500 - Partita Iva 01618980500 Numero R. E. A 141307 - Registro Imprese di PISA n. 01618980500 Capitale Sociale € 10.000,00 i. v.
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