English version

  The castle and the churches 

Thanks to its strategic position, the castle of Rosignano is very ancient. First it was built as an Etruscan fortress, then it became a Roman castrum. Later it was turned into a Medieval fortress and the quadrangular towers which are now demolished to southareare evidence of this. They were built in calcareous stone called" Rosignano travertine, later they were cut and plastered. The keeps which are more recent than the quadrangular towers, were transformed in the17th century: the one to the east became a jail and it is still in good state of maintenance with its corbels set in a circle and with the small full centre arches; the one to the west is cut and it was used as a terrace to the Archbishop's House . Probably there existed two more keeps, but nothing of them has remained. 
The castle walls of the ancient castle were lower; one of the doors was at the beginning of the descent. 
The door that is preserved nowadays dates back to 1704. In that same place there existed a door with a much lower threshold, in fact we can see a segment of an arch with a stone armilla on the left of the existing entrance. 
Above the arch, there is a stone plate with the inscription: «Cosmus II - Magnus - Dux Aetrur IIII - Moenia instauravit - «M.D.C.C.IIII» A.D. This means that in 1704 the road , both the door of the castle and the one of the church and whatever is around were set in the way we now can see them. The plate is surmounted by the Medicean marble coat of arms ,which represents a shield with six balls inside and is contained in an ornamental motif typical for the age which is now spoiled. 
Above the coat of arms there are five brackets made of dark sandstone. 
You can see a similar Medicean coat of arms , made of serene stone, situated to the left between the arcades of the terrace of the Vestrini house, such arcades perhaps in 1700 gave access to the grand duke's stables when the the prince used to go huntings. 
In the Middle Ages the castle was arranged as a defence against the attacks coming from the sea, inside the castle there are several houses which were built in about 1433, when the Florentines demolished the castle fortifications . Some of them preserve traces of many remote remakings others have been changed more recently , such as the praetorian palace which became the Bombardieri palace and the one which belonged to the Marini family. In all about thirty residences and some shops: among these a cellar to keep wine and the blacksmith's. 
As it was the most ancient and isolated nucleus the Castle was the historical residence of the authorities: in 1551 one of the most important was the "Officer of the Court and Bench of Rosignano", generally a notary whose house, situated between the walls and the street, was also used as a jail. The largest and finest residence in the Castle belonged to Pisa archpishopric. 
Above the church door you can see the symbol of S. Bernardino from Siena I. H. S,; above another door there is Franceschi archbishop's coat of arms which dates back to1785. Il starry symbol of S. Bernardino is also on the wall of the parsonage. 
The cistern with the three coats of arms in the neck, is ancient. As in summer there was lack of water, the public cistern of the castle was built and later there was built the one situated in the village square. 
According to the three coats of arms that decorate the neck of the castle cistern , both because of the shape of the shields, and the enterprises that are carved here, it is possible to deduce that the cistern dates back to 1300 or even earlier .The coat of arms in the middle with the six roses , is the one of Rosignano municipality, the coat of arms on the right, with the rampant lion, might represent Pisa Archbishop's revenue; the coat of arms on the left, with smoothed checks, might belong to the family of the Archbishop who, when the cistern was built, ruled Pisa diocese . In such case the cistern might have been built by Pisa Archbishops and by the Commune. All the coats of arms are enough corroded. 
On an external wall of the Vestrini house situated to the north, there remains two bifurcated merlons made of bricks and stone,which are therefore Ghibelline like Pisa in the XIV century. 
In the vault of the Town Hall, in correspondence of the keep, there is the beginning of a vaulted passage which is largely filled and therefore it can't be explored.Perhaps it was a secret passage that led down out of the castle. 
In the façade of the old parsonage, they walled up a stone star with the symbol of S. Bernardino; this star comes from the inside of the castle church . 
In 1500 it was only a decayed fortification, a part of a country village, where the external walls served as a defence against the raids of the Moors that raided the coasts in their small boats called foists. 
Inside the Castle you can also see Saint Ilario's church, which was built before 1524. It became parish church in 1540 and was united to Saint Giovanni Battista and since then it assumed the double title (both Saint Ilario and Giovanni Battista). The present arrangement dates back to 1704 and still has two bells in the small bell tower. 
In order to defend from the pirates in 1562 Cosimo de'Medici ordered to fortify the fortress again and to furnish it with the two keeps still existing .In the same period there were built the Archbishop's Farm , which has been the Town Hall until the fifties of last century; Marini Palace which is now the seat of a gallery of contemporary art and of the rooms devoted to the sculptor R. Filidei and to the anarchic poet Pietro Gori who spent some periods of his life in Rosignano where he was also buried; Vestrini Palace that is the seat of the Historical archives and finally Bombardieri Palace, which is the seat of the Archaeological Museum. These buildings belong almost completely to the municipality. 
The whole Castle was consolidated in the 19th century but remakings and partial restauration work, not always optimal, have been made up to the thirties of last century. The church was damaged during the second world war too. In the postwar period the situation got worse and worse until the eighties , when the Town administration started a program of gradual recovery, still in progress, in order to restore its own residence in the Archbishop's Farm.