Talamone Castle

The Castle seen from the sea and from the town.

On a promontory at the south extremity of the Mountains of the Uccellina (also national park) in a dominant position on the Tyrrenic coast  rises the ancient town of Talamone. The place was  center of settlements since the antiquity: first Etruscans (traces of the city of Tlamu have been discovered in 1888 on a hill, called 'Talamonaccio', not too far from the actual suburb) and then Roman. Of this period are returned to the light at the end of the last century important architectural rests: a pagan temple erect  in the 225 A.C. in commemoration of the victory brought by the Roman troops of Attilio Regolo on the Barbarian invaders in the 528 A.C. (these vestiges are now preserved in the Archaeological Museum of Florence), the cemetery of the same battle, graves of the 200 A.C., ruins of the thermal baths and, in the near valley of the river Osa, rests of a bridge with four arcades.

Castle map.

From the ancient times to the Middle Age Talamone crossed a period of almost total abandonment, unused ownership of the monks of the Abbadia S.Salvatore on the Mount Amiata. It knew new life when became fief of the Aldobrandeschi family and in the year 1303 of the Senese Republic. The Senesi reactivated the port trying to make of it  their principal maritime station, and they built the mighty castle that still today dominates the town and great part of the surrounding zone. The fortification has the a square form, strengthened on the angles toward the sea from three turrets and in the inside angle from another one taller and thicker, with functions of watch tower.

The suburb overhung by the castle.

The Fortress was at the core of the walls that contained the suburb, of which are still visible notable rests, to the extreme layer on the rocky promontory toward the sea. The agglomeration of the houses results to be well central and isolated from the fortifications by an enough wide band of  respect. Failed the senese dream to make Talamone a powerful maritime center the castle and the suburb returned soon in a state of abandonment, so much that the chronicles remember it as easy prey of the Saracen pirates raids. The same Senesis readjusted the fortification in the 15th century during the war against Florence, but this didn't prevent  the castle from a twice destruction. Its actual aspect, smooth and deprived of battlement and other ammennicolis, is due to the works of  restorations of the year 1557 made when Talamone entered  to make part of the State of the Spanish Garrisons, in which possession remained up to 1801. After a short Austrian dominion first and of the Kingdom of Naples then, from 1814 it became part of the Granduchy of Tuscany. Talamone entered in the  Italian history in 1860, when Garibaldi disembarked with his men to supply of weapons and ammunition on the route for the conquest of the Kingdom of the Two Sicily's.