On the rocky spur above the town of Caprona stands the “Torre degli Upezzinghi”, a nineteenth-century copy of the tower of the ancient castle that existed in the mid-eleventh century and was dismantled by Florence in 1433.
The extraction of stone from the Caprona quarries has progressively transformed the landscape of the town.
When the rocky spur was still substantially intact, it was possible to see the remains of the medieval fort around the turret.
The aforementioned castle was located at the foot of the rocky spur on which the watchtower stood, which allowed communication with the surrounding fortified structures, namely the Rocca della Verruca and the Uliveto towers, for the control of the narrow area of land located between the Arno river and the southern offshoot of Monte Pisano.
The extraction of stone from the Caprona quarries has progressively transformed the landscape.
When the rocky spur was still substantially intact, it was possible to see the remains of the medieval fort around the turret.
Furthermore, until the 1950s, a few hundred meters west of the aforementioned ruins, the walls of a palace were visible, the construction of which, commissioned by Cosimo I, was never completed: the building was popularly known as the “Palazzaccio”.
Today the tower is in a dilapidated condition, but despite the degradation, its position on the edge of a man-made precipice makes it a landscape curiosity with a strong impact.
The castle of Caprona suffered an attack by the Guelph League of Tuscany, formed mainly by Lucchesi and Florentines on August 16, 1289, which attacked the Ghibelline troops of the municipality of Pisa, then governed by Guido di Montefeltro, who saw the former win after a siege lasting eight days.