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Torre di Capo d’Uomo
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Torre di Capo d’Uomo

Torre di Capo d’Uomo is a coastal tower located in the municipality of Monte Argentario, about 350 meters above sea level, on the summit of the homonymous hillock, which rises in the southwestern part of the Argentario promontory, in a dominant position towards the sea, almost halfway between Porto Santo Stefano and Porto Ercole.

The tower was built in the Middle Ages most probably by the Aldobrandeschi family, before most of their territories became part of the Republic of Siena, where the Argentario promontory was completely incorporated. In the second half of the sixteenth century the tower became a fundamental reference for the defensive system of the State of the Presidios, being able to send luminous signals between the Tower of Cala Piccola and the Tower of La Maddalena, unable to communicate visually.

The tower continued to play for centuries the original sighting functions to which it was used, being definitively abandoned only in the nineteenth century. Its position in an inaccessible and hardly accessible place meant that there was no interest in the purchase by private individuals, and so the ancient defensive structure underwent a rapid deterioration, also favored by the place particularly exposed to the action of the winds.

The Torre di Capo d’Uomo comes in the form of clearly visible ruins, in a dominant position, even in the distance from the panoramic road that winds along the west coast of the Argentario promontory.

The tower preserves the outline of the quadrangular plan shoe base, in addition to the stone wall remains of the external walls that characterized its upper part; around it there are the remains of a contemporary annex building of which are not yet known those that were its functions.

From the hill of the tower the visual field extends along the entire Maremma coast, towards the Isola del Giglio, Giannutri and, on clear days, Corsica is also clearly visible: all this shows the importance of fortification in the past centuries in the development of sighting functions.