SEXTANTIO diffuse hotel
Santo Stefano di Sessanio
l’Aquila – Italy
Phone +39 0862 899112
www.sextantio.it
Santo Stefano di Sessanio is a fortified medieval village rising on a pre-existent Italic-Roman site.
It is located at an altitude of 1250 metres deep in the heart of the Apennine mountains near L'Aquila, within the Gran Sasso & Monti della Laga National Park, in Abruzzo.
The village's present urban structure was established in the Middle Ages during the developing castle-building phenomenon and features a landscape scattered with fortified highland habitats, one of the historical and topographical elements which still characterises Central Italy today. During this era Santo Stefano was part of the political and territorial dominion of the Carapelle Barony, as well as property of two illustrious Tuscan families: the Piccolomini and, later, the Medici family.
The bond with Florence and the rest of Europe was due to the mercantile importance of its wool production, a raw material produced locally from the Middle Ages to more recent times. Despite the isolation, often in areas of subsistence-level agriculture, the prosperity from wool production explains why such remarkable villages flourished at that time: the variety of the architecture and the quality of the buildings provide ample evidence of the town’s history.
New markets, new raw materials, finally the agricultural policies of a new unified Italy marked the loss of the grazing industry and sealed the fate of these villages; local people were forced into a life of hardship and poverty that would, ultimately, end with emigration leaving the territory almost completely deserted.
What remains of this civilization are a few rare villages that have survived and maintained their historical and architectural heritage, without the recent all-too-pervasive urban “developments”, thereby offering a still unspoilt environment that is uniquely in harmony with its natural surroundings.
As one of the most authentic villages in the socio-historical evolution of habitats in the south-central Apennines at the time of fortifications, Santo Stefano di Sessanio’s present layout is a medieval urban plan that, with the addition of late-medieval and pre-Renaissance architectural stratifications, is articulated in a complex manner: courtyards, patios, alleys, covered porticoes, arches, loggias, portals, stone fireplaces in the buildings, all arising in a spontaneous ad hoc fashion, an unplanned urban development with layers of history stratified one on top of the other.
The surrounding landscape is characterized by century old features: “archaeology of the landscape, or territory” with clear inscriptions marking the village's surroundings (open pastures, terraced fields, dry stone walls, etc.).
The exceptional integrity and melding between man and environment represent a unique and most distinctive feature of this land.
Further information is available on line. Please visit website at www.sextantio.it