The origins of the walled suburb of Fileto date back to the Byzantine defense against the Longobards, in the VI and VII centuries. The defensive system, the "limes" was based on the castra of Filetto and Filattiera. Indeed they have the same name origin: from the Greek term "filakterion", strengthened place. Filetto made part from the 1351 of the feud of Malgrate, in 1641 was sold to the Camera Reale of Milan and then to the Ariberti of Cremona.
Through two monumental doors we enter the suburb. The Piazza di Sopra has a quadrilateral shape and was defended by four cylindrical towers, one of then still up. The first nucleus was then transformed into a strengthened residence with repeated interventions till the XVII century. In the other square rise the church of Saints Filippo and Giacomo and the Marquises Ariberti's Palace, an imponent seventeenth-century building connected to the suburb and the church by two elegant aerial passagges. On the other side of the square it is situated the Convent of the Frati Ospitalieri, a vast complex of the XVII century, with a beautiful inside cloister partly destroyed and rehandled.
Just outside the southern door, we find the oratory of St. Genesio of the XVI century, in the mysterious wood of Filetto, where has been recovered numerous statue-stele.
In August, Fileto host the Medieval Market, when the suburb goes back to the past with medieval decorations, jugglers, minstrels, acrobats and objects of the local craftsmanship in iron, wood and stone.

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The villages of Villafranca in Lunigiana