Vincigliata

Vincigliata Castle (Italian: ‘Castello di Vincigliata’) is a medieval castle which stands on a rocky hill to the east of Fiesole in the Italian region of Tuscany. In the mid-nineteenth century the building, which had fallen into a ruinous state, was acquired by the Englishman John Temple-Leader and entirely reconstructed in the feudal style.

Between 1941 and 1943 it served as a small prisoner-of-war camp known as Castello di Vincigliata Campo P.G. 12. It housed some high-ranking British and Commonwealth officers, including Major-General Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart who was employed by the Italian government in the Armistice negotiations with the Allies in 1943.

The 13th-century castle located on a hill north of Florence close to Fiesole is medieval in origin. It was once the ancient stronghold of the Visdomini family, important Florentine nobility since the 11th-century. They enjoyed special privileges from the Florentine bishops. A son of the family John Gualbert, a Benedictine monk, was canonized in 1193 by Pope Celestine III. The property then passed to the Usimbardi family, (which introduced glass production to Florence) followed by the Ceffini of Figline.

They soon sold it to the Buonaccorsi banking family. In the general crash of Florentine banks in 1345 (bad debts by King Edward III of England for his Battle of Crécy and Battle of Poitiers (1356) campaigns) it was purchased by Niccolo, son of Ugo degli Albizi, a wealthy mercantile family. A branch of this family, for reasons of political expediency renamed Alessandri, occupied the castle for some three hundred years.

After the fall of the Republic, the Alessandri family still kept up their palace in the city, but the castle was allowed to drift into decay, till by the year 1637 only the Lord Francesco lived there with a 10-year-old son, Giovani Antonio, and a maiden aunt of 70. The ruins and land were sold in 1827 to Lorenzo di Bartolommeo Galli da Rovezzano They became a source of interest to writers and artists during the romantic era, as evidenced by an Emilio Burci sketch dated 1836.

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