Montecchio stands on a sandstone hill on the bank of the river Era, nestled in the woods of the ‘Serre’. The sandstone rock is criss-crossed by tunnels, possibly dating back to Etruscan or probably medieval times, that were used as shelters in wartime. Around Montecchio, the remains of the ancient Temple of Ortaglia, which was destroyed by fire, have been found and are on display at the Archaeological Museum of Peccioli.
It is characterised by its particular urban conformation as a former castle: while some of the dwellings retain the architectural style of the 13th and 14th centuries, the apse of the small church was carved out of one of its towers. The church of Santa Lucia and Pancrazio is located at the highest point of the village known as ‘Cantinaccia’. The very simple, plastered façade ends in a gable and was rebuilt in 1881 along with the reconstruction of the large bell tower.
The small Palm Sunday Church is located at the highest point of the village, known as ‘Cantinaccia‘. It takes this curious name because mass is only celebrated here on this feast day.
Montecchio is also home to ‘Rilievi‘, a permanent work by Umberto Cavenago created in 1996. It consists of a series of octagonal bronze elements, placed on the pavement of the town’s main street and in precise positions obtained from the survey carried out by a team of geo-biologists hired by the artist to study the terrain. The technicians were tasked with surveying the ‘Hartmann network‘: a system of lines forming a square-meshed grid with its points of intersection, known as ‘radiating nodes’. As in Feng Shui, geobiology provides the cue to reorganise the orientations of objects within one’s domestic space.