Torre di Bellosguardo

54 THE TOWER On the southern side rises the Tower, the ancient heart of the estate, whose masonry dates to the thirteenth century. It must once have appeared more compact and powerful, with defensive proportions. In 1364 the hill was struck by the violence of Pisan and German troops, later repelled by Florence, and the buildings were partially devastated: it is likely that the original tower fell at that time. It was the Cavalcanti family who, in the following century, restored its presence, rebuilding it with a more slender and soaring profile, lightened by long machicolations of fifteenth-century taste that still define its silhouette against the sky of Bellosguardo. VERTICAL SILENCE