Castel del Monte in Abruzzo, Italy is a stunning hill village DRONE! - Castel del Monte Italy - ECTV

Castel del Monte in Abruzzo, Italy is a stunning hill village!!!
Visit Castel del Monte, Abruzzo
Castel del Monte in Abruzzo is a beautiful village which covers the top of a hill in the Gran Sasso mountain range. From the village you have 360° views over the surrounding mountains adding to the beauty and drama of this medieval and Renaissance village. It is classified as one of the "borghi piu belli d'Italia" or "most beautiful villages of Italy".
Explore Castel del Monte
Castel del Monte is a really stunning village in a superb location. Its architecture mostly dates to Medieval and Renaissance times. The Medicis ruled the town from 1579 for a century and a half and their legacy includes the Chiesa di San Marco with its distinctive tower.
Around the town are strong defensive walls which are also houses and five defensive gates which also date to the Medici period. These five gates were kept shut on a night until the 19th century to keep bandits out of the town!
Castel del Monte was a very prosperous sheep trading town from the 12th to the 16th centuries but the annual sheep drive to Apulia stopped in the mid 19th century and the town suffered a significant decline in wealth and population size. This decline means that little has changed since these early yearls and the town has retained its medieval and renaissance charm. As a result in recent years tourism has seen an improvement in the town's fortunes and whilst Abruzzo does not get the visitor numbers of other parts of Italy, Castel del Monte is one of its highlights.
Castel del Monte is a medieval and Renaissance hill town and comune in the province of L'Aquila in northern Abruzzo, Italy. Located in the heart of the Gran Sasso mountain range, the town is set into a steep hillside nestled beneath mountain peaks near the high plain of Campo Imperatore. Castel del Monte sits opposite the ancient mountaintop fortress of Rocca Calascio and faces Monte Sirente in the distance. It is located in the Gran Sasso e Monti della Laga National Park. It is a member of the I Borghi più belli d'Italia ("The most beautiful villages of Italy") association.[3]
History
The name Castel del Monte is from the Latin Castellum Montis, meaning "fortress of the mountain". The first evidence of human settlement are artifacts from the 11th century BC discovered in the valley beneath Castel del Monte and believed to be from an ancient necropolis. In the 4th century BC, Romans conquered the area and established Città delle Tre Corone, the name meaning "town of the three crowns". This town was later abandoned after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and replaced by the fortified town of Ricetto in what is now the oldest part of Castel del Monte.
The first recorded mention of Castellum Del Monte came in 1223 in a papal bull by Pope Honorius III. In 1298, the Counts of Aquaviva took possession of the town. In 1474, it passed to Alessandro Sforza and a short time later to the Piccolominis. In 1501, forces loyal to Spain plundered Castel del Monte because of the town's allegiance to France.
Chiesa di San Rocco, built adjacent to the town's main portal after the plague of 1656
In 1579, the Piccolominis ceded the village as part of the Baronage of Carapelle to Francesco de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. The Medici, who governed the baronage for over a century-and-a-half, left their imprint on Castel del Monte. Among the Medici legacies to the town is the construction of Chiesa "Matrice" di San Marco in 1657, whose tower is one of the dominant architectural features of Castel del Monte; the painting of St. John the Baptist in the church of Madonna del Suffragio by Bernardino di Lorenzo di Monaldo (circa 1585) commissioned by Francesco de' Medici himself; and the diminutive Chiesa di San Rocco (1656).
The town's massive defensive walls, largely formed by "wall houses", and its great gates, were also completed under this period of Medici rule.
In 1743, the baronage passed to Charles of Bourbon, then king of Naples and Sicily (later King Charles III of Spain). The village became part of Italy in 1861.[4]
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The American the movie with George Clooney some parts were filmed here.