MONTECATINI ALTO

    Montecatini Alto was a castle of romanesque origin , 299 meters of altitude, that in the past time was the seat of the municipality until the year 1905. It was the origin of the Montecatini that we know now. At the beginning the only existing town was the one on the hill, however, already in ancient times, people knew that the waters in the swamps had curative powers, and that the termal patrimony of Montecatini was probably already known to Etruscs and we have documents, relating about the spas, dating back to 1387, however one never gave enough significance to the phenomenon. The Funicular looks like one of those little trains of the Western movies pursued by the Red Indians and even its age briback to that period: 1898.

At the end of the XIX century, Mr. Alessandro Ferretti, an engineer from Genoa, had the idea to realize a ropeway between Montecatini Alto and Montecatini Terme, called respectively "the Castle" and "the Montecatini Baths".

He obtained the relative licence by the Montecatini Municipality on October 8 1896 but he needed to find the necessary financing for this complex and expensive work. He found his capital partners in Genoa: Mr. Carlo Barbano and Mr. Giacomo Giovannetti (the square next to the Funicular is named after them) They took about 4 months to terminate the studies relative to the layout and to the location of the stations and to carry out the on-the-spot investigations on the lands where the Funicular would have run through and their consequent expropriation; in the end, on February 11, 1897, the majority partner, Mr. Carlo Barbano, sent to the Montecatini Terme Municipality "copy of the final layout and of the longitudinal profile of the Funicular according to the finally selected way and for which the definitive expropriation contracts were being entered into, according to the preliminary agreements taken with the land owners".

On March 1, 1897 the first rail works began. The dream of many inhabitants of Montecatini to be easily connected to the "Castle" was about to come true.

The excavation and building works such as viaducts and bridges and the track laying lasted some months. The beginning of 1898 was employed for the technical improvements of the facility and especially in preparing the great opening ceremony which took place on June 4, 1898 with the participation of famous people such as the genius of the opera, Giuseppe Verdi.