Tagliacozzo

Tagliacozzo is a town in L'Aquila province, Abruzzo, in an area historically inhabited by the Aequi and Marsi peoples, though the town itself is first documented in the 11th century AD. It was later held by the Orsini family, who established a mint there, and then passed to the Colonna family, who held the Duchy of Tagliacozzo until 1806.

The town gives its name to the Battle of Tagliacozzo, fought on 23 August 1268 between the Ghibelline forces of Conradin of Hohenstaufen and the Guelph army of Charles of Anjou — the last stand of Hohenstaufen power in Italy, whose defeat led to Conradin's capture and execution and opened the way for Angevin rule over southern Italy. The battle itself took place a little east of the town, in what is now Scurcola Marsicana, and is recounted by Dante in Canto XXVIII of the Inferno.

Piazza dell'Obelisco is the town's principal square and its best-known landmark, notable for an 18th-century fountain that is a protected national monument — unusual for a village of this size — and today the main venue for local events.

Scurcola Marsicana, site of the 1268 battle associated with Tagliacozzo, lies just to the east in the same Marsica area of L'Aquila province.