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Monteriggioni borders the communities of Casole d'Elsa, Castellina in Chianti, Castelnuovo Berardenga, Colle di Val d'Elsa, Poggibonsi, Siena and Sovicille. Abbadia a Isola, Badesse, Basciano, Belverde, Castellina Scalo, Ceppo, Colonna di Monteriggioni, Fontebecci, Quercegrossa, Riciano, Santa Colomba, Scorgiano, Stomennano, Strove and Uopini are frazioni of Monteriggioni.
Sovicille borders Casole d'Elsa, Chiusdino, Monteriggioni, Monteroni d'Arbia, Monticiano, Murlo and Siena. Rosia, San Rocco a Pilli, Stigliano, Torri, Volte Basse are frazioni of Sovicille.
Visitors travelling from Florence to Volterra, or to Monteriggioni and Sienna, via Poggibonsi often overlook Colle di Val d'Elsa because they pass only the modern part of the town. In fact, Colle di Val d'Elsa has a small but attractive old town with two important provincial museums, the Museum of Civic and Religious Art and the Archaeological Museum, as well as quite a good Museum of Lead-Crystal Glass.
The city celebrates itself as the city of Arnolfo and the surrounding territory as Terre di Arnolfo - Arnolfo di Cambio is a celebrated 13th centurt sculptor and architect.
A visit to Colle can start from the Piazza Arnolfo, surrounded by porticos, and dating from the second half of the 19th century. From the square you reach the Piazza Bartolomeo, and, continuing, you get to the Chapel of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. On the other side of the square are the Shrine of Our Lady of Renaio (16th century) and the Church of Santa Maria Assunta (10th century). The church is located not far from the 11th century Benedictine Abbey. At the Monte Spugna is the Cartiera (Paper Mill) della Buca, home to the Paper and Printing Museum. Facing the 'Middle Paper Mill' [Cartiera di Mezzo] you find the Teatro del Popolo ('People Theatre).
Continuing on, you arrive at the Square and the Church of St. Augustine, designed by Antonio da Sangallo (1455 ca.- 1534), the façade of which dates from the 13th century. Inside, it contains numerous paintings and works of art; and nearby is a neo-Gothic bell tower.
From the so-called Guelph Gate (Porta Guelfa), the only remaining gate from the 14 original access points to the city, you arrive to the Pozzo (Well), also known as the Quattro Cantoni, placed in the upper town. After the Conservatory of St. Peter is the Hospital of St. Laurence (XVII century), restored by Peter Leopold in the late eighteenth century. Following the way from the Old Gate (Porta Vecchia) you reach the old Convent of St. Francis (XIII century).
Remarkable here is the Piazza Bajos, for the presence of numerous houses of medieval origin. You will also discover the Tommasi, Usimbardi, Orlandini, Galganetti and Alessi Palaces. Continuing on you arrive at the church of St. Catherine (XV century). The interior is bright because of its stained glass windows, depicting the 'Conversion of St. Catherine'. From the Square, you also see other buildings of great artistic value, such as the Palazzo Renieri, Apolloni and Ceramelli Palaces and the current Town Hall.
In the upper town it is the Castle that stands out, which opens from the Campana Palace (1539) by Giuliano di Baccio d'Agnolo, a very interesting work because of its humanistic classical references in the facade. The main door of the palace connects with Via del Castello, through which you access the Old Town with its many medieval and Renaissance buildings, like Salvetti, Morozzi, Giusti, Dini Palaces and the Episcopal Seminary. In “Piazza del Duomo” [“Cathedral Square”] there are the Podestà Palace and the Tower of the Cathedral. On the other side you can see the Renieri Palace, Fountain and the Old Episcopal Seminary.
The Cathedral in Colle di Val d'Elsa, with a neo-classical façade, was built in the first half of the 17th century on the site of the ancient parish church of St. Saviour. The interior of the cathedral houses many works of art, like the marble pulpit of 1465, and a crucifix in bronze by Giambologna (1529-1608). In the side chapels note the door of the sacristy, the Chapel of the 'Holy Nail' (Santo Chiodo), with a railing in the Renaissance style.
The Sacred Art Musem is found in the Praetorian Palace. The museum is dedicated to the great scholar Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli from Siena (1900-1975), and it collects artefacts from the territory of the Val d'Elsa from the Neolithic to Middle Ages. Colle has a large amount of finds from the Etruscan period, extracted from the great necropolis of the 'Le Ville' and 'Dometaia'.
Next to this stands the 14th centuery Palazzo dei Priori and now the seat of the Civic Museum, prepared in three rooms. Among the oldest examples of medieval art is a large table with the 'Majesty', a work by an anonymous painter active at the end of the thirteenth century. Other notable works are those by Cennino Cennini [1370 ca-1440 ca.] ('The Nativity of the Virgin'), Lorenzo Bicci [1350-1427] ('Madonna and the Child with Saints'), and, among the moderns, we mentions the names of artists such as Ventura Salimbeni (1568-1613), Sebastiano Folli (1568-1621) and Bernardino Mei (1612-1676). The visit can be concluded with the famous Tower of Arnolfo, in which, according to tradition, Arnolfo di Cambio was born (1240-1302).
Tuscany | Colle di Val d'Elsa
Tuscany is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world. Known for its enchanting landscapes, its fantastic and genuine food and beautiful towns as Florence, Pisa, Lucca and Siena.
Podere Santa Pia is situated in a distinctive location where green wooded hillsides give way to entirely different surroundings known as the Maremma. The countryside is both lunar and sublime. The hillsides are decorated with sunflowers, wheat fields and fragrant pastures as well as numerous impressive vineyards. This privileged location offers a spectacular vista over the charming medieval town of Cinigiano and the entire Ombrone Valley. It is the perfect place for your relaxing holiday with your friends and family. The property consists of 4 large bedrooms furnished in a classic Tuscan style and 2 bathroom with shower, a big full-equipment kitchen with a fireplace and a big living room and dining room. With its original kitchen and the wood burning pizza oven, Podere Santa Pia offers an upbeat atmosphere. The farmhouse has been renovated and provided with all modern comforts (satellite TV, Wi-Fi Internet access, washing machine, dishwasher, and so on), with an eye to preserve the typical and charming elements of these rural lodgings. There you have, then, cosy and warm rooms with traditional terracotta-tiled floors, stone walls and wood-beamed ceilings. And the kitchen, furnished for pleasant meals with traditional Tuscan dishes (bread soup or "ribollita", tomato soup, "fettunta", Florentine-style steak, stewed wild boar, cinta senese cured meat, and other Tuscan specialities).
The impressive garden (9000 square mt.) allows you to enjoy a relaxing holiday and is perfect for taking time out and lounging about while sipping on a glass of local wines, Montecucco DOC and Brunello DOC.
Sitting in the garden, one can enjoy our dawns and dusks, with their jubilee of colours ranging from dark yellow to pink, orange and red. In this scenario, it is often possible to observe the flight of pheasants, falcons and buzzards, great tits, chaffinches and sparrows.
This is an enchanting place far from noise, ideal to regenerate body and mind, where one has the opportunity enjoy pleasant walks or rides on mountain bike. The summer breeze that caresses Podere Santa Pia guarantees "cool" holidays even in the hottest weather.
Tuscan farmhouses | Podere Santa Pia
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Sovicille, Pieve di San Giovanni Battistaa Ponte allo Spino
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Villa Cetinale |
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Pieve of SS. Ippolito and Cassiano |
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San Gimignano,
view from Rocca di Montestaffoli
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Colle di Val d'Elsa |
The Province of Siena contains a richness that is unique in the world: remarkable differences in surroundings, from the barren Crete hills, rich with sunflowers in spring, to the wooded Nature Reserves. A countryside where ancient cities, often built on hilltops, from tales of the past play an important role in the landscape. Each small town as well as the larger cities breathes the atmosphere from a time that has to be seen in order to tell.
Scattered throughout the province of Siena are a large number of old medieval cities and villages which are home to inviting, cosy restaurants offering the finest local and regional food and spirits and, in addition, specialist craft shops. Podere Santa Pia is the perfect base from which to enjoy it all.
Abbadia Isola, reached on a one-hour foot excursion from Monteriggioni, is a small town named after its breathtaking 11th-century Benedictine abbey. Abbadia Isola, Island Abbey, so named in ancient times because of its raised position with respect to the marshland that encircled it. grew around a Cistercian Abbey called San Salvatore, founded in 1001 by Ava a member of the noble Lombardi family who were lords of the surrounding lands.
Casole d'Elsa is a little idyllic hilltop town with the most beautiful country side surrounding it. The area counts 3.000 inhabitants called Casolesi. Casole d'Elsa is an extensive Commune and is placed close to the source of the river Elsa. For this reason the area was highly populated back in Etruscan times, and several remnants can be found in the area.
Casole has always been under the influence of the big cities, first by Volterra that back in the middle ages became a bishop ship, then followed a short time of independence where Casole had its own town administration (the town hall building testifies to this). Finally, after 1260 the town fell in the hands of Siena.
Today the town appears particularly well kept and, in fact, the town administration often organizes cultural events such as art shows.
The town lives off of tourism which has increased a lot in the last few years and off of agriculture. Lately the area has been given its own DOC for winemaking.
Abbazia di Conéo, Badia a Coneo near Campiglia, is a Romanesque structure that was founded by the Vallombrosan monks at the start of the 12 C and is one of the most interesting examples of religious architecture near Colle Val d'Elsa. Its plan is in the shape of the Latin cross, as is typical of Vallombrosan churches, and the intersection of the nave and the transept is surmounted by a sectioned dome, which is octagonal inside. The internal capitals and the cornice which runs round the outside of the building are decorated with starred flowers and other geometrical devices, of great artistic beauty. The building possesses a number of pre-Romanesque features, with numerous external brackets in the shape of imaginary animals.
Here one can join the historic Via Francigena.
San Gimignano is a small walled medieval hill town and is mainly famous for its medieval architecture, especially its towers.
While in other cities, such as Bologna or Florence, most or all of their towers have been brought down due to wars, catastrophes, or urban renewal, San Gimignano has managed to conserve fourteen towers of varying height which have become its international symbol.
The heart of the town contains the four squares, Piazza della Cisterna, Piazza Duomo where the Collegiata church is located, Piazza Pecori, and Piazza delle Erbe. The main streets are Via San Matteo and Via San Giovanni, which cross the city from north to south.
There are many churches in the town: the two main ones are the Collegiata, formerly a cathedral, and Sant'Agostino, housing a wide representation of artworks from some of the main Italian renaissance artists.
The Communal Palace, once seat of the podestà, is currently home of the Town Gallery, with works by Pinturicchio, Benozzo Gozzoli, Filippino Lippi, Domenico di Michelino, Pier Francesco Fiorentino, and others.
The little Romanesque Pieve di Sant'Appiano has XV and XVI-century frescoes. On the lawn in front of it are four pillars, testimonials of the ancient baptistery built there by early Christians and torn down in 1805. Adjacent to the entrance to the rectory is the little archaeological museum that preserves some finds from the area.
The Antiquarium of Sant’Appiano is a small archaeological museum located in rooms adjoining the Pieve di Sant’Appiano just a few km from Barberino Val d’Elsa. It houses some of the material found during archaeological digs in the surrounding area following the first accidental discoveries at the beginning of the 20 C.
Villa Cetinale is a 16th century villa in the Ancaiano district near Siena, Italy. Designed by the architect Carlo Fontana, the villa was built in the 1600s by Cardinal Flavio Chigi for Pope Alexander VII — Fabio Chigi. The gardens at Villa Cetinale are renowned as being amongst the most beautiful in Italy.
La montagnola senese extends in the districts of Siena, Monteriggioni, Sovicille and Casole d'Elsa, but for the most part it is located in the district of Sovicille. There is a varied landscape: woods cover the hills and fields spread out in the plains. In this area there are lots of ancient human settlements, as prehistorical evidence shows: Stone Age evidence in Personata, in the Spino plain and Brenna; Bronze Age evidence in Cetinale, Partena, Montarrenti and on the Poggio di Siena Vecchia. Several Etruscan settlements have been discovered:Luco Valley, Poggio alla Piana, Ancaiano, Cetinale, Partena and Toiano. Roman evidence has been found in Stigliano, Rosia, Palazzone, Poggio Luco near Malignano, Barontoli, Simignano, Toiano and Sovicille. Traces of Byzantine and Longobard settlements are in Filetta, Caggio di Sovicille and Orgia. During the XII-XIII century several churches were built, among which the parish church of Pernina, Molli, S.Giusto a Valli, San Lorenzo martire, S.Maria di Ponte allo Spino, teh parish church of Rosia and San Lorenzo martire. In the same period some towers (Palazzone di Sovicille and Palazzaccio di Toiano), castles (Celsa, Montarrenti, Cerreto Selva e Palazzo al Piano) were built, too. Several ancient villages and churches are really charming; among the first ones there is the XII century white fortress of Monteriggioni, with its boundary wall reinforced with 14 square towers. Among the second ones: the wonderful parish churches of Radicondoli, Ponte allo Spino in Sovicille, San Giovanni in Rosia, the Augustinian hermitage of Lecceto, and finally the original complex of Abbadia Isola, a medieval village built in 1001 around the Cistercian Abbey of San Salvatore. In the area of Montagnola Senese there are several buildings and other structures that are worth to be visited.
Tuscany | La montagnola senese
Sovicille is located in the eastern part of the Sienese Montagnola in the Val di Merse, an area of lush forest and mediaeval villages 12 km from the centre of Sienna, and has played a remarkable role in the history of Republic of Sienna.
One of the main monuments of the Sovicille area is the Pieve di San Giovanni Battista (Parish Church Ponte allo Spino - dedicated to John the Baptist), a romanesque structure with three naves located close to the remains of a gothic cloister, the Hermitage of Rosia. The church is better known as the "Pieve di Ponte allo Spino" and was originally built in the second half of the 12 C by Vallambrosan monks and shows many similarities with contemporary French architecture.
The Pieve di ponte allo Spino already existed in 1050 and it was a halting-place along the road that linked the "Via Cassia" to the "Via Aurelia". Under the courtyard some precious mosaics of the Roman Empire Age have been found; they were part of a large Roman villa. The entrance of the church is interesting, as you have to go down some steps to enter the church. It consists of a building with nave and two aisles and it was built in late Romanesque French style, that is quite similar to the Gothic style. The capitals are gracefully decorated with human figures and geometrical ornaments.
The Ponte della Pia - (Pia's Bridge) it is the most charming bridge of this area. In Etruscan times an ancient road cro
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