The strong position of the old castle above the Arno valley caused it to be connected with several Florentine events during the prosperous but troubled times of the Commonwealth. Up to the year 1204 the people of Artimino enjoyed a certain amount of political independence, but when the struggle began between Pistoja and Florence the latter envied the rival Tuscan city the possession of so strong a fortress, situated on the summit of a steep and precipitous mountain and commanding the narrow defile. When the Florentines invaded the lands of Artimino it appeared, says the chronicler, as though a mighty tempest had swept over the land, leaving vines, olives and fruit trees bowed beneath its passage. A little later the people of Artimino began to prey upon the neighbouring Carmignano, which continued for some time to be a deadly foe; swooping down like falcons from their eyrie, hardly a day passed without bloodshed, and at last things came to such a pass that Pistoja had to send mediators to conciliate these war-like dwellers of the hill and their truculent neighbours. “But finding it impossible to obtain anything by persuasion, the mediators were obliged to have recourse to threats in order to induce them to keep the peace, which under pain of severe penalties and fines was at last arranged on the 28th June 1224, when the mediators returned to Pistoja where those of Carmignano swore fealty to the Consuls.” During the war between Florence and Castruccio Castracane, the powerful tyrant of Lucca and Pistoja, Artimino had even more to suffer. Her castle being the key to the valley, the Florentines were not slow to assail it, and after a sharp fight it fell into their hands. Not content with taking two hundred prisoners, they threw down part of the castle walls and carried home in triumph the bell of the Commune which was “of great size and of most exquisite metal,” as the Florentine chronicler recounts with a certain amount of satisfaction. The evening on which Artimino fell a long streak of lurid smoke was seen above Florence, and on the previous night a great earthquake shook the city—thus did nature and war combine to cast terror in the minds of the mediæval Italians. After the battle of Altopascio Castracane gained back his castle, but no sooner did he leave it for some other military enterprise than the Florentines returned with renewed ardour to the attack. For three days the people of Artimino fought against their assailants, “but on the third,” says Villani, “the Florentines delivered the most terrible assault that ever castle sustained and the most renowned knights of the army were engaged; it lasted from midday until the first hour of the night and the pallisades and gates of the castle were set on fire. For which reason great fear fell upon the besieged and those who were badly wounded with darts, and they begged for mercy and offered to surrender if their lives were spared; and thus it was done.