Getting down from the high lands of the Campo Imperatore's Upland, a white burgh, towered by a beautiful tower, charms the traveller as an ancient music arising from a long past time, through the mists of centuries...
This is Santo Stefano di Sessanio.
Built with white calcareous stone, made dull by the time, the village is an artwork on the top of a small hill, in the middle of a valley.
Its fourteenth-century cylindrical tower is the symbol of this lovely medieval miniature. Named "The Medici's Tower" for the sign of the Medici's Tuscan family, the tower was built during the medieval age, when the village was an important sightseeing point of the Carapelle Calvisio's Baronage.
Unfortunately, the earthquake on 6th April 2009 ruined that, but its rebuilding has already started and it will finish within two years.
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| The Medici's Tower in Santo Stefano |
The entrance of the village, in the south-est side, is trough the Medici's Door, on the top of wich there is the symbol of the Seigniory of Florence, wich left several traces in the medieval architecture of this small and wonderful burgh.
Santo Stefano di Sessanio is a labirinth of narrow stone streets, archs and galleries, charming the visitor, giving to him feelings of security and glow, charm and magic wich bring him back to times past, to a medieval age wich can be lived again just in the burghs of the Baronage's Lands (Santo Stefano di Sessanio, Castel del Monte, Rocca Calascio, Carapelle Calvisio).
And each narrow street leads to the top of the village, where the tower dominates all the buildings.
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| The wonderful narrow stone streets in Santo Stefano di Sessanio |
Walking trough the narrow stone streets of the burgh, the visitor can admir the beautiful fifteenth-century houses, the most important of wich is the Captain's House, close to the tower. That is named in this way because it was occupied by the fascist army during the Second World War.
The loggias of the Captain's House were made by the master stonecutters from Florence. The same stonecutters built the wonderful royal palace, the Palace of the Loggias.
All the Santo Stefano's burgh is ringed by the famous "wall-houses", very high houses with thick walls and small windows, from wich it was easy defending.
The "wall-houses" or "tower-houses" are the peculiarity of some burghs of the Baronage's Lands, like Castel del Monte, but just in Santo Stefano di Sessanio there is the famous "Buscella", a narrow hole in the walls, where, as the ancient stories tell, the young lovers met up for kissing.
The name of Santo Stefano di Sessanio comes from the church of its saint patron, the Santo Stefano Protomartire's Church, built between the XIV and XV century in the cemetery of the village.
But the church charming the visitor is the Madonna del Lago's Church, built in the XVII century. Out of the walls of the village, on the green pastures, the church is mirrored in the water of the lake wich it looks after.
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| The Madonna del Lago's Church in Santo Stefano di Sessanio |
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