Villa di Geggiano
 
   
Near Castelnuovo Berardenga, on the top of a hill covered in vineyards, stands Villa di Geggiano, belonging as of 1527 to the Bianchi Bandinelli family.
Villa di Geggiano was originally a rural construction which most likely dated back to the beginning of the 14th century. After being given to the Bianchi Bandinelli family (that has among his ancestors the Pope Alexander the 3rd), as the dowry of Girolama Santi when she married Girolamo Bandinelli in 1527, it was enlarged by adding a few rooms in keeping with the rebirth of spending summer vacations at a place in the country. Its appearance today is the result of radical rebuilding carried out during the marriage of Anton Domenico Bianchi Bandinelli with Cecilia Chigi Zondadari, which took place in 1768. The exceptional condition of the dwelling - the villa and the gardens -, including the perfectly kept, original 18th century treasure of furniture and decorations, is due not only to the stories of the various families that owned it in the past but also to the effort of the famous archeologist and art historian Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli (1900 - 1975), who made it his main residence and wrote about his love for the place and its preservation in order to share these things with his descendants, who today live and work there, a very special place indeed. In the year 2000 a major restoration project was started on both the villa and the gardens.
 
   

The rectangular villa spreads over three floors, with a central tower that adds an extra floor to the building. There are two blocks to the sides of the building: the one to the right contains the Madonna of the Rosary family chapel.
In addition to the Green Theater (Open Air Theatre), the villa has a very nice entrance room, which was painted in 1790 by Ignazio Moder, portraying the twelve months of the year, and a few rooms where one finds the original furniture in 'veneziano rustico' style and original French wall paper (Papiers Peintes) and fabrics (Toile de Jouy). Ignazio Moder was a travelling Tyrolean painter.

 

  

 
Park and Garden

  

The Villa di Geggiano and its gardens have been declared a Monumento Nazionale and constitute a phenomenon which is unique both historically and in terms of landscape gardening: its organic conservation of furniture and decorations take the visitor back to the atmosphere of an elegant 18th century vacation house. In the gardens, which are decorated with groups of century-old cypress trees, a parterre of boxtrees and hundreds of potted lemon trees, one finds the quaint Teatro di Verzura with two, late-baroque prosceniums in brickwork, decorated by the Maltese sculptor Bosio. Through one of the several, intermittent, monumental gates in the surrounding walls, one arrives at the Pomario, a mixture of flowerbeds and vegetable garden decorated with topiaries and a terrace fish pond from where one has a magnificent view over the neqrby city of Siena. It was in the Teatro di Verzura that Vittorio Alfieri staged a tragedy of his during one of his many stays at Geggiano, as a guest of Mario Bianchi Bandinelli, with whom he was very close friends.

The garden is divided into two areas: the one in front of the villa is known as the Piazzone, the other is the kitchen garden. The Piazzone is laid out parallel to the front of the building, with large lawns at the sides edged with low box hedges and ending at the southern end in the 18th-century teatro di verzura.The entire garden is surrounded by a high wall into which six gates open, flanked by monumental pillars crowned by terracotta vases and statues of monkeys. There are two openings to the south, at the sides of the theatre, two to the west, leading into the kitchen garden, one to the east, leading out to the countryside and one to the north, alongside the villa. The kitchen garden, which occupies a square portion of land to the west, ends in a semi-circular brickwork fishpond and is organised as an Italian-style garden with geometrical beds arranged around a well.

  
     
Musica Reale is a recently started initiative to bring together members of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, in a variety of formations, for the performance of chamber music in all its aspects. All instruments being available in the orchestra, the choice of programming is enormous.
www.musica-reale.com
  
Villa di Geggiano
53019 Pianella (Siena) Italia
Tel. 0577 356 879
www.villadigeggiano.com
  
 
   
 
Villa Geggiano or Villa Bianchi Bandinelli, dates back to the 13th century, was renovated between 1780 and 1790. It forms, together with the surrounding garden, a very unusual complex, both from the historical and the landscaping point of view.

 
Green theatreGreen theatre

The original installation of Geggiano Villa dates back to 1530. Around 1768, in the occasion of the wedding of Anton Domenico Bianchi Bandinelli with Cecilia Chigi, Malavolti widow, the building was completely transformed in a grand villa with a garden surrounded by a wall and with a greenery theatre. Vittorio Alfieri, who stayed for short periods at the villa, acted some of his tragedies just in the greenery theatre. In its splendour times the villa has been frequented by Montale, Saba, Guttuso and Stendhal. Recently the villa gave hospitality to the set of the movie Stealing beauty. Bernardo Bertolucci's Io ballo da sola (I dance alone) was filmed in the villa.
A long tree-lined avenue, with cypresses in the first part and holm-oaks further on, leads all the way to the entrance gate, parallel to the teatro di verzura, the outdoor theatre on the south side of the garden.

Adorned with century-old cypresses and potted lemon plants and clipped box hedging, the garden boasts a unique Green theatre. This slightly raised theatre is surrounded by tall laurel hedges and consists of a proscenium made up of twin arches, surmounted by triumphal pediments into which the crests of the Bianchi Bandinelli and Chigi Zondadari families are inserted. The arches have niches containing the statues of Tragedy and Comedy, by the Maltese sculptor Bosio. Vittorio Alfieri, a family friend, performed one of his tragedies here in the late 18th century. It’s called teatro di verzura (greenery theatre) because the scenes are built by cypresses and laurel hedges.
  The proscenium of 18th century greenery theatre comprises two twin arches, crowned by triumphal frontons bearing the courts of arms of the Bianchi Bandinelli and Chigi Zondadari families. The arches are decorated with niches containing statues of Tragedy and Comedy.