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Island of Elba in Tuscany - The Middle Ages

Pliny the Elder called it “The Island of the good wine”. That is how the great sea traffic started with ships carrying amphoras full of wine: many are still preserved in the Archeologic Museum of Portoferraio and Marciana and together with other surprising finds rescued from the sea, they tell the history of ancient navigation. Magnificent patrician villas, such as Linguella, Grotte and Capo Castello, were built in the most scenic gulfs, and were in those days, as still today, holiday places.

During the Middle Ages it was the Maritime Republic of Pisa that exploited the iron and granite mines of the Island of Elba: most of the columns that embellish Piazza dei Miracoli have been shaped by the skillful stonecutters of San Piero.There are many monuments from the Pisan period: the fine Romanesque churches, the Tower of San Giovanni in Campo built on an enormous mass of granite, and above all, the powerful “Fortress” of Marciana and the Castle of Volterraio, a lookout over mountains and seas.

In 1548 came the turn of the Medici: Cosimo I built the fortified town of Portoferraio, a unique example of military town planning. It blended so perfectly with the sea and the land that the new city was called Cosmopoli, “cradle of civilization and culture, example of balance and rationality”.Afterwards came the Spanish who settled in Porto Azzurro and built the imposing San Giacomo Fort, today a prison, as well as various chapels and the charming Sanctuary of Monserrato, set at the top of a sombre mountain.

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