Rocca Aldobrandesca of Castiglione D'Orcia

The ruins of the once powerful Fortress Adobrandesca crowning the hill upon the country of Castiglione D'Orcia

The Fortress overhangs the medieval suburb of Castiglione d'Orcia.

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The rests, unfortunately scarce, of what once was the mighty Rocca of the Aldobrandeschi dominate the medieval suburb of Castiglione D'Orcia. The Fortress rises on the vertex of the relief 574 meters high on which slopes the country is set up.

Castiglione D'Orcia seems to be the most ancient settlement of the area, although news of the presence on site of a Parish and then of a castle is only of the Middle Age. The fortress was erected by the feudal family of the Aldobrandeschi of Santa Fiora, one of the most powerful of southern Tuscany, around the 10th century. The small fortress controlled the ancient road that, from the Mount Amiata, leads to the Val D'Orcia,  the most important medieval road for the communications from and toward the area of the Maremma. The nearness, practically only at hundred meters in line of air, of the mighty Rocca of Tentennano limited the control that the Rocca Aldobrandesca could practice on the Val D'Orcia and on the Road Francigena that crossed it, as its 'twin' rose in a better strategical position for the purpose. In the Middle Age the zone was strongly contended between the families of the Aldobrandeschi, the Salimbeni and the monks of the Mount Amiata Abbey. In the 13th century the area began to interest the big cities of Siena and Grosseto. After years of hard struggles, was the city-state of Siena to take control on Castiglione, subdued in 1251, and the other fortresses of Val D'Orcia, acquired between 1254 and 1258, and to take care of the reinforcement of the fortification. The Senese feudal family of Salimbeni had in fief this part of the Val D'Orcia, thanks to the services given to the Republic in the battle of Montaperti against the Florentine army. Only in the 1419 Siena, after many failed attempts, subtracted these castles at the dominion of the Salimbeni that were becoming, with their expansionist aims, a menace for the chief town.

The rests of the fortification are scarce, either for the state of abandonment in which has been left from the end of the 'War of Siena' of the 16th century, but above all for the serious damages suffered during the bombardments of the second world war. Our days we can still look at  the excellent material used in the construction of the keep and it lets us imagine the original aspect: it had to seem near to a classical-build medieval fortresses with external enclosure able to contain the population in case of yielding of the city walls. Fortunately the suburb has been recently object of a main restructuring, but the Fortress still remain in a state of advanced degrade .