Representing an extraordinary model of the settlement process in Tuscany’s central area, the municipality of Poggibonsi and the University of Siena have realised on the hill the “Archeological park of Poggio Imperiale”, which offers the possibility to explore the different village’s phases discovered in fifteen years of archeological excavations.
The Park, created in 2003, completes a ten years work that gave to the archeologists the opportunity to tell the long story of the hill, from the villages made of huts, during the Early Middle Ages, to the “half-town” of the Late Middle Ages until the today’s Fortezza Medicea.
The park includes, in addition to the walkway, the Cassero: the village of the Fortezza Medicea, a fortress with a pentagonal plant whose construction (1505-1510) started with the bastioned front, equipped with just one entrance and two side towers. Here we can find the documentation center which, thanks to explanatory panels, models, items, scale reconstructions 1:1 and copies of tools and clothes tells the story of the area, following a touch the past template.
The Park’s concept, grounded on a strong scientific foundation, is based on a living history system of communication and on experimental archeology.
From this kind of approach, different activities were projected from experts’ meetings to summer schools, passing through educational and informative programs for adults and kids.