Pontremoli, “key and gateway to Tuscany”
In upper Lunigiana, where the Magra and Verde rivers meet below the Apennine passes, Pontremoli stands on the Romea or Via Francigena route from northern Europe to Rome. It was an important stopping place for centuries. It appears in Archbishop Sigeric of Canterbury’s travel diary in 990. In 1313 Henry VII called it the key and gateway from Lombardy into Tuscany.
A free commune under successive rulers
Pontremoli declared itself a free commune in the twelfth century and gained recognition from Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa in 1167. It later passed among the Malaspina, Pallavicini, Fieschi, Antelminelli, Visconti, Sforza, Scaligeri, Rossi and other rulers. In 1322 Castruccio Castracani built the fortified Cortina di Cacciaguerra from the Magra to the Verde to separate the Guelph and Ghibelline factions. Today’s Piazza del Duomo and Piazza della Repubblica grew from this division. After a long period in the orbit of the State of Milan, the town passed to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany in 1650.
Pontremoli, a noble town
Under Florentine rule, Pontremoli became a trading and transit centre for goods travelling north from Livorno. Prosperity transformed medieval houses into noble palaces with courtyards, stone portals and window surrounds. In 1778 Grand Duke Peter Leopold declared Pontremoli a “noble town”.
The tower house
Tower houses offered a protected home and storage place. They rose vertically, with thick stone walls and small openings. Typically the ground floor stored goods, the middle floor was lived in and the attic held supplies or offered shelter. A removable wooden stair led to the raised entrance; trapdoors and ladders connected the floors. As defence became less important, ground-floor entrances, fixed stairs, larger windows, separate rooms and fireplaces made these buildings more comfortable while retaining their recognisable form.
Nicodemo Trincadini
Nicodemo Trincadini, also recorded as Tranchedini, was born in Pontremoli in 1413. A humanist, he entered the service of Francesco Sforza at a young age and became one of his most trusted diplomats, working between Milan, Florence, Rome and the leading Italian courts. Emperor Frederick III made him a count palatine in 1457; Pope Pius II named him a count of the Sacred Lateran Palace in 1460. He was also a bibliophile, lexicographer and man of letters. His Pontremoli house held a library of Latin classics and contemporary works. Inventories in his Zibaldone describe a richly furnished home, as B. Campi recounts in Memorie storiche della città di Pontremoli.
The fire of 1495
Accounts of the devastating fire of 1495 say that very few houses survived. Notary Ser Francesco Erreghini recorded that, besides Piagnaro fortress and several churches, the homes of Nicodemo Trincadini, Matteo della Rocca and Battista Cresci in San Pietro escaped. As no record of the latter two remains, Nicodemo’s house may be considered the oldest in Pontremoli. Tradition says residents extinguished an attempt to set it alight and that many townspeople sheltered there with their possessions during the siege by the soldiers of Charles VIII.