Here is a list of the populations of a few towns in Italy (per the websites Wikipedia and City-Facts):
We visited all the places on the above list (and others). This page will feature Corinaldo, which is near Mondavio but slightly larger. Viewed from a distance, it has that classic 'borgo' look.
It is a pretty village, and many residents have pretty entrances to their houses.
We were told two stories about Corinaldo, both of which are certainly apocryphal. One is the story of a drunkard whose children moved to America. They sent support money to him but insisted that he send back pictures to prove he building the house as he claimed and not just drinking the money away. So he sent them a photo of the home he had built ... except it was just a facade of a house, with no other walls or roof! The other story is much older. The city was under siege, and a man walking up the stairs with some corn flour tripped and fell into the well, along with the flour. Corn flour makes polenta, and the well provided an unending supply of polenta so that the people did not starve during the siege. We were not told what happened to the man that fell into the well; hopefully they pulled him out before eating the polenta! Here is Paul standing next to the Polenta Well; fortunately Paul did not fall in.
It is understandable how someone might trip on the stairs near the well.
This central staircase leads from the ramp entrance to the city. Above the arched entry are two large beams with chains. The beams can be pulled back into the wall. These likely were to open and close a long-missing gate to secure the entry.
Immediately inside the entrance is a large half-dome area that has the typical embrasures (gunholes) for shooting weapons at attackers.
The walls of Corinaldo are very impressive. This next photo shows the portion of the wall that leads away from the main entrance.
The city was destroyed in 1360 and the current walls were built shortly after that. There are substantial portions of the wall that have walkways available. Here you can see some steps finishing up along the top of the wall, and the raised sections that archers could have used for protection.
The walls are part museum now, with informational signs next to some rooms that are actually inside the walls. For example, there is one outside a small residence - a complete but very small house in the city wall. The sign talks about house was inhabited until the 1960s. A nearby section of the wall was under repair, and it gives an idea of the depth of the walls. In this picture, turnbuckles are being attached from the outer wall to the inner, to provide extra support to the walls.
Here is Anne just past the construction in a covered area near the wall.
Wandering into the village and away from the walls ...
brought us to Piazza del Cassero. According to a sign inside it, the Addolorata Church had to be rebuilt in the mid 1700s because of weather damage to the old structure. This new church has an organ that dates back to 1776, portraits of Benedictine saints (2nd photo below), and a Madonna Addolorata statue that gets carried through town as part of the Good Friday procession (3rd photo below). Note that the statue has a knife going into Mary's heart, which is the style of the Madonna Addolorata. The church also had a very pretty ceiling.
In the piazza is an eye-catching plant adorning the front of a building. They nicely provided a sign in multiple languages, explaining that the plant is bougainvillea, originally from South America. It has a solid and thorny trunk. This specimen was planted in 1969, although it had been pruned completely down in 1984 after bad weather damaged it. You can see that it recovered. Although we saw it at the end of the season, the plant was still lovely. Anne is taking a picture of the sign in this next photograph.
Our walk around Corinaldo including a visit to this guard tower which disturbingly is called Guard Tower of Flayer. According to this tourism information page, after the danger of being attacked by other villages was over, city residents were allowed to live and work in the towers. A sheep skinner was assigned this particular tower. The Italian word for a sheep skinner is scorticatore, which translates as flayer.
Nearby someone must have been a bit bored with normal chimneys.
Here is another example of the walkways that are available along the wall. This section of wall is much thinner than the previous section that had the mini-house inside it.
From the wall we could see the top of this carport. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves were hanging out on the top, although we only saw 6 of the dwarves. In case you are wondering, the QR code leads to the page of a person who does both artistic and practical metalworking.
The city tourist office had a model of Corinaldo on display.
We only had a quick visit to Corinaldo, but it is likely worth a longer visit.
Updated December 2023