2 Bed 1 Bath Villa

Description

Apartment of 100 square meters with garden and barbecue available in the heart of the park of Poggio a Massa Marittima, the green area of the Etruscan town, with a children's park in front, parking available and reserved and all the necessary comforts. Ideal for families and for all those who wish to spend days of peace and relaxation in the Tuscan hills of the Maremma and in the historic medieval village of Massa Marittima. Free and wi-fi service available. Ideal also for those who decide to spend their holidays by the sea, as the small villa del Poggio is only 20 minutes from the sea of Follonica, Castiglione della Pescaia and Puntala.

Massa Marittima rises on the western side of the Colline Metallifere complex at an average altitude of 400 meters above sea level and is 18 km from the coast. The surrounding area is covered by woods of Mediterranean maquis and fields mainly cultivated with vineyards and olive groves. Massa Marittima, already inhabited in the protohistoric era, has very ancient origins and the mineral riches of the district were already exploited since the time of the Etruscans. The area is dotted with small inhabited centers that arose in ancient times due to the strategic value of the mountains and the remoteness of the malaria-infested marshy valleys.

The hill on which the built-up area of Massa develops descends towards the coast through an alluvial plain that, before the reclamation works carried out between the XVIII and the XIX century, presented on the coast wide lagoon basins, separated from the sea by sand bobbins. The town is crossed by narrow streets that rise and descend from the hill on which it develops. It is divided into three Terzieri or districts: Old Town, New Town and Borgo. The first, Old Town, develops around Piazza Garibaldi, which is overlooked by all the buildings of public life in the Middle Ages, while the new one is in the upper part of the city, where the mighty Sienese Fortress with the Torre del Candeliere is located. . In the lower part of the medieval city is the Borgo, where the ancient building of the Mint is located.

A bit of history The name is often misleading, given the relative distance from the sea, and its origins are to be found already in Roman times, when the term massa indicated landed property under a single administration. Of late conception was the maritime appellation, established definitively in the 18th century to connote the proximity to the coast.

Massa Marittima has a long history linked above all to the mineral resources present in the subsoil and to the particular morphological conformation of the territory which, over the centuries, have enabled man to find favorable conditions for settling in these areas.

The town reached its maximum splendor between the 13th and 14th centuries, when it was proclaimed a Free Municipality, but there are well-preserved traces of the first settlements dating back to the end of the Upper Paleolithic, dated around 11,500 years (Epipaleolitico). The so-called Riparo di Vado all'Arancio, near the small hamlet called Cura Nuova, is an example of this: research conducted in the cave in the 1980s brought to light many finds that testify to the populousness of these areas.

Still in the area of Vado all'Arancio, another fortuitous discovery demonstrates the same thesis: the anthropomorphic Eneolithic stele dating back to around 5,000 years ago, now exhibited at the Archaeological Museum of Massa Marittima together with a large collection of finds discovered in the numerous caves scattered throughout the territory.

In fact, throughout the area there are numerous natural caves that were used for housing purposes over the millennia. Surprising is, for example, the discovery in 1958 by a Swiss paleontologist, Johannes Hürzeler, in the mines of Montebamboli: here, following the collapse of a tunnel, the fossil remains of Sandrone were found, the Oreopithecus bambolii that lived these areas about 8 million years ago.

However, the first real settlements date back to the 9th century BC C., with the appearance of Etruscan villages on the hill of Macchia di Monte, near Lake Accesa. The excavation campaigns of the 1920s, which were then taken up in the 1980s by Professor Camporeale, brought to light five living quarters organized in clans. These nuclei were in fact mining outposts forming part of the territory of Vetulonia which had been installed to exploit the deposits of iron, copper, lead and silver.

It was only between the eighth and ninth centuries. C. that the bases for the development of Massa Marittima were founded as we know it today: with the emergence of the Curtense system and of feudal families, the coastal settlements moved towards the inner hilly areas, more easily defensible and the city structure it began to be defined from the 12th century around the Castle of Monteregio, then a bishop's see. The city, therefore purely medieval, reached its maximum splendor especially in the thirteenth century, thanks to the mining heritage that allowed it to enrich itself and to buy the noble rights and independence from the bishopric: in 1225 Massa Marittima was proclaimed Free Municipality with political autonomy . The central role of mines in the growth and development of Massa Marittima is also witnessed by the drafting, at the end of the 13th century, of the Mining Code, one of the statutes for the regulation of the oldest mining activity in Europe.

However, from 1335 a period of decline began following the occupation of Siena and the territory suffered a great depopulation and was a victim of economic impoverishment, famine and pestilence.

With the arrival of the Lorraines in 1737, the Grand Duchy finally experienced a great economic recovery, thanks to the substantial reclamation works and investments in mining and infrastructure.

Mining exploitation was the basis of the local economy, especially from the second half of the nineteenth century, which involved the deposits of Montebamboli, Fenice Capanne, Gavorrano, Boccheggiano and Niccioleta until 1994, when the last mine was closed.