{"id":1252,"date":"2023-07-25T12:06:45","date_gmt":"2023-07-25T11:06:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fontemaggiobedandbreakfast.it\/?page_id=1252"},"modified":"2023-07-25T15:44:12","modified_gmt":"2023-07-25T14:44:12","slug":"nature-surroundings-and-entertainment-6","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/fontemaggiobedandbreakfast.it\/en\/nature-surroundings-and-entertainment-6\/","title":{"rendered":"Castignano – The abode of the Templars"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Castignano – The abode of the Templars<\/h1>\n<\/div><\/div>
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The Story<\/h2>\n

Five minutes from Dimora Fontemaggio is Castignano. It is a tradition that the name “Castignano”<\/strong> derives from the wonderful chestnut groves that surrounded it, and this hypothesis is believed to be the most reliable, given that the chestnut tree<\/strong> towered in the town’s main square, figures in the civic coat of arms and still stands imposingly in the garden of the municipal headquarters on Via Margherita. Instead, some want this name to derive from the chastity of the customs of the early inhabitants, while others claim that the name comes from the Roman Consul Castinus (424 B.C.), founder of the country.<\/p>\n

The town<\/a> of Castignano, around the year 1000<\/strong>, was of considerable size, but because of both its sloping location between the Tesino River and the Chifente and Acquachiara streams and the geological structure of the land, consisting of layers of clay and sandstone, half of the town sank.
\nThus was created the high cliff to the south, fortified with the imposing wall with thirteen arches that today is one of the main features of the panorama. More devastation has since befallen the village over time, by landslides and earthquakes (in 1335, 1574 and 1717) and, more recently, by the earthquakes of 1913 and October 3, 1943.
\nIn the 11th century Castignano became part of the garrison of the Farfensi and later came under the authority of the Bishop of Ascoli. A domination, that of Ascoli, never accepted by the Castignanesi who waged hard struggles and popular uprisings to regain their autonomy, allying with Fermo, another rival of Ascoli. Between 1369 and 1380 Castignano also suffered the brief but harsh tyranny of Boffo da Massa. Around 1400, it came under the jurisdiction of the Roman Court, and just a century later, in 1493, it returned under the rule of Ascoli at the hands of Pope Alexander VI, who sold the municipality’s territory for 3,000 scudi.
\nIn 1530, on the orders of Pope Clement VII<\/strong>, the fortress of Castiglioni, erected by the people of Ascoli to control Castignano, was destroyed. The struggles ended in 1535 when Michele Recchi, sent to Perugia to plead the Castignanesi’s cause to Pope Paul III, was killed right in front of the Palazzo dei Priori, the papal residence, by Astolfo Guiderocchi from Ascoli, who had been sent to support Ascoli’s jurisdictional supremacy rights on the other side.
\nFollowing this misdeed, the Pope, in 1538 permanently restored independence to the Castignanesi and in 1585 Sixtus V made Castignano a free capital city<\/strong> also from the temporal power of the Bishop of Ascoli, placing it under the jurisdiction of the Diocese of Montalto Marche, while the hamlet of Ripaberarda and the Castiglioni district remained under the Diocese of Ascoli.
\nThe Castignanesi obtained several privileges from the Pope during that period, and in 1590 they compiled the statute. Under Napoleon, Castignano became part of the Kingdom of Italy in the canton of Montalto, but in 1815 it was again incorporated into the Apostolic Delegation of Ascoli. In 1860 the Castignanesi voted compactly in favor of the Kingdom of Italy and were the first to raise the national banner.<\/p>\n

Testifying to an ancient past is the “Stele<\/a><\/strong> of Castignano, “<\/a><\/strong> found in Castignano territory, with a Picene inscription dated<\/strong> 6th century B.C<\/strong>. It is one of the most valuable pieces in the Archaeological Museum of Ascoli Piceno, where it is kept. the stele is a sandstone boulder in the shape of a roughly pyramidal truncated, four-sided, four-sided cippus, a little more than a meter high with a bustrophedic inscription (reads alternately right to left, left to right) and represents the first and oldest Italic alphabet inscription<\/strong> (example of the most comprehensive South-Picene writing). Of the various interpretations, the translation most shared by experts is the following: “This defense raised the Appaeans to their hands, if anyone dares to profane this place of the father and mother commits sacrilege.”<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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