
A millennial estate in the heart of Tuscany.
Noble families driving a huge territory.
Marquises Bartolini Salimbeni,
Counts De Bearn – Valery,
Counts Pitti Ferrandi.
Finally, the refuge of a German tycoon
at the end of World War II.
Stories, events and enigmas
occur in the shadow of the Tower.
Today, an unprecedented seal
emerges from the most mysterious history
of these lands and is embodied in the soul
of a prestigious Supertuscan
to pass on an arcane Truth.


In the basement of the fortified Villa of the village of Torre a Cenaia, an engraved mark is brought back to light on an ancient stone basin.
The sign, with unmistakable features, has characteristics typical of the emblem of the Knights of the Order of the Hospital of San Giovanni in Jerusalem, but it has much older origins and many are the orders of chivalry who have made it their own.
The Octagonal Cross is a symbol of the Nestorians as early as the 5th century AD. and it was adopted in Italy by the Amalfitans who engraved in their coins, the tarì. They founded a hospital in Jerusalem in 1023, exactly where we find the Order of the Hospitallers of Saint John a few years later, in 1025.
The Cross of the Eight Beatitudes was also assumed by the Templar Knights who even used it as a secret alphabet.
The Templars will abandon it in 1139, following their papal formalization, when they adopt the Cross Patée.
Likewise, the Octagonal Cross was used by the Knights of St. Lazarus and by the Knights of Malta, orders that are still identified today by this symbol.

Initially, in the Christian tradition, the Octagonal Cross indicates the Eight Beatitudes listed by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount according to Matthew the Evangelist. Then, it soon passed to symbolize the Templar Knight’s Virtues:
Spirituality
Simplicity
Humility
Compassion
Justice
Mercy
Sincerity
Endurance


The geography of the territory of the Estate, the streets that ran through it, the proximity to the ancient port of Pisa are highly compatible elements with the presence of a Preceptory of the Templar Knights in Torre a Cenaia then acquired, after the dissolution of the Order in 1312 , by the Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem.
In the Middle Ages, the “preceptories” were mostly structures run by religious, composed of a church, buildings for the guest, hospital, storage of agricultural products and a farm, sometimes several hundreds of hectares, with ditches, canals, fish ponds, which had to ensure food subsistence and the supply of foodstuffs to the missions in the Holy Land.