Rocca of Piancastagnaio
The front inside the walls with the quarterdeck. A square tower of the walls, in the background the Mastio della Rocca. One of the surviving gates of the city walls, facing south.
Piancastagnaio is located on the slopes of Mount Amiata and can be reached by following the Via Cassia until the junction for Abbadia S. Salvatore / Vetta Amiata / Piancastagnaio.
Since the XI century the area of southern Tuscany around the castle of Piancastagnaio was the subject of the expansionist policy of the powerful family of the Aldobrandeschi and the whole territory is rich in historical evidence related to their potentato.
As almost always speaking of the Aldobrandeschi possessions also Piancastagnaio was disputed to the noble family by the monks of the San Salvatore Abbey from the year 1000, later it was claimed by the Visconti di Campiglia and during the XIIIth century it became the object of further disputes between Siena and Orvieto. The Orvietani obtained control of the powerful fortress in 1303, keeping it for about fifty years.
At this point the heirs of the Aldobrandeschi, the Orsini of Pitigliano, entered the disputes, this time to oppose the aims of the Sienese Republic. Only between 1415 and 1430 Siena finally managed to take possession of Piancastagnaio, who was annexed to the Capitanato di Radicofani.
Contemporaneously the fortress was the subject of extensive renovation that made it suitable to be the residence of Captain Sienese.
In 1600 the settlement became a grand-ducal fief and finally, with the Leopoldine reforms, the capital of the homonymous community.
Built on the slopes of Mount Amiata, the village has a circular shape, once enclosed by a fortified wall surrounded by square towers and four doors. The walls have been almost completely demolished, there are still three towers, two semicircular and one square, the main door next to the fortress and three other very simple doors, in the southern part of the walls' Porta Romana Porticciola 'e' Porta of Voltaia '. The mighty Rocca Aldobrandesca still stands today at the highest summit of the town. The building has a quadrilateral shape and is equipped with high walls strongly scarped. Two towers rise from the fence, the largest, both as solidity and height, had the formwork, the other, located in the opposite corner, defended the underlying gateway to the city. The whole complex was equipped with a defensive apparatus to protrude on corbels, still almost intact, and the battlements mostly disappeared. La Rocca is in excellent condition thanks to a careful restoration work completed at the end of the 18th century.
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