Cana

Letizia Silenzi

At about 500 meters above sea level, the village of Cana boasts a panoramic position over the valleys leading towards to the Maremman plains of Grosseto. The town is flanked by the mountains that separate it from the Amiata, Monte Labro, and the valleys of the river Fiora. The fortified old town faces the sea and the city of Grosseto, enabling one on clear days to admire the islands of Elba and Corsica.

The town has Etruscan origins, but it is in the early Middle Ages that the upper hamlet “Borgo di Sopra”, the castle with its fortified walls, and the lower hamlet “Borgo di Sotto”, a group of houses that run around the medieval walls, were formed. Its position overlooking the surrounding valleys has contributed to its development. Cana was a fiefdom coveted by Siena and later by the Florentine nobility, as evidenced by the ancient cistern of the Medici era that is still present and characterizes the Piazza del Popolo.

In the last century Cana was a village of farmers and shepherds, but also of miners working the pyrite mine in the neighboring town of Baccinello.

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