The village of Montecarlo stands on the hill of Cerruglio, that dominates the surrounding plains, on horseback between Lucca and the Valdinievole. It produces an oil of high quality wines in the PDO: the Montecarlo bianco and rosso di Montecarlo.
The original nucleus of Monaco was the village of Vivinaia, ancient property of the Dukes of Tuscia, who stood at the foot of the hill. In 1331 the town was devastated by the Florentines and the authorities lucchesi decided to reestablish the village on the top of the hill of the Cerruglio, where once stood the homonymous fortress. In 1333 the new village took the name of Monte Carlo in honor of the future Emperor Charles IV of Luxembourg, which had helped in Lucca to get rid of the Pisan occupation.
The fortress of Cerruglio played a strategic role in the wars of the XIV century between Lucca, Pisa and Florence and was from the fortress which Castruccio Castracani, lord of Lucca, directed his troops by bringing them to victory in the battle of Altopascio of 1325. The fortress was enlarged first by Paolo Guinigi, Lord of Lucca, and subsequently by the Florentines, especially from the grand-ducal government that, since 1437, had definitively Montecarlo under its control.
Monaco is also the birth place of Armando De Dominicis, pioneer of Italian aviation, to which the municipality in the year 2002 has dedicated the park of San Salvatore, by placing thereon a plaque to his name.
In addition to the visit of the Fortress of the Cerruglio, it is also advised that the Pieve di San Piero in Campo, in the hamlet of the same name.
Village of Montecarlo
The Municipality of Montecarlo
Province of Lucca
Tuscany Region
inhabitants: 4.404 montecarlesi
Altitude center: 162 m a.s.l.
The Municipality is part of:
Città del vino
Strada del vino e dell'olio Lucca Montecarlo Versilia
Acknowledgments
Orange Flag - Italian Touring Club
Municipality
Via Roma 56 - Tel. +39 0583 22971
BY CAR
ON THE TRAIN
BY PLANE
While we climb up the streets of Montecarlo, paved with large stones, between row of flowered houses, we immerse ourselves in the history of its ancient hills, when between Lucca and Montecatini Terme still a real village wasn’t there. When, in the XIV century, the territory of Lucchesia passed into the hands of John of Bohemia, the inhabitants of the place have titled the new suburb to his son Carlo, and it is thanks to this gesture that in 1333 the emperor decided to build on the hill of Montecarlo the powerful fortress which for centuries had a fundamental role in the war between Pisa and Florence, and it remains today the undisputed gem of the village.
The houses of Montecarlo are beautiful, of a well educated nobility. The square is a large balcony overlooking the most diverse part of geography in Tuscany: flat, rivers and towns, distant mountains and isolated wooded rumps. Of the old drawing, in addition to the streets, there are two access gates and massive ruins of the fourteenth-century castle, tightened around the most ancient fortress and entirely surrounded by walls.
The olive groves and the vineyards of the hills that embrace the place produce an oil of high quality and a special wine: the White of Montecarlo, which arises from the vinification processes in which some producers, toward the middle of the Nineteenth Century, introduced French technologies, giving the product a delicious taste, since then the key of the notoriety of the village in the oenological field.
Discover the other villages on the guide Tuscany - Unique Villages To Love