Impossible to miss, the Masso Leopoldino rises far above Sovana‘s skyline, watching over the town like a hawk.

Built in the 18th century, the fortress with commissioned by the powerful Duke Leopold of Lorraine in an attempt to make the city impregnable.

And with its neck-straining tall stone wall and powerful square bastion, it’s fair to say he succeeded.

Peering over the side of the building that sits on the cliff face is a bit frightening. It’s a sheer drop down metres and metres to the valley floor, and 18th century architects didn’t really think about tourist safety.

If you’ve got kids, keep them away from the edge. If you don’t and you’re not scared of heights, then this an incredible vantage point to take in the town and the valley below.

Astute observers with very ,very good eye sight might just be able to make out the ancient ‘grotte’ – caves used by the Etruscans to store food and livestock. They jut out of the cliffs that surround the town like Swiss cheese!

On the other side of the observation terrace is a very old, but still functioning clock tower. It was built at the same time as the fortress and embraces the same militaristic style.

When Duke Leopold commissioned the fortress, he designed one entry point, the Porta dei Merli, which still stands today. An ancient arch, it’s carved out of travertine rock and crowned by two coats of arms, the first belonging to Cosimo II de’Medici, while the other is that of Niccolò IV Orsini.

What I find so interesting about the Masso Leopoldino is that is sits almost parallel to the Fortezza Orsini on the other side of town. Sovana and its picturesque streets are squeezed between the two imposing buildings like a precious treasure in much need of protection.

And indeed, Sovana is beautiful enough to warrant such protection.

https://maremma-tuscany.com

Masso Leopoldino

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Fortezza Orsini
If you can only visit one thing in Sorano, visit this fortress. It is, after all, one of most detailed and complete examples of Italian Renaissance military architecture in all of Italy.

Designed by Sienese architect Anton Maria Lari in 1552, it’s an imposing structure made up of two hulking bastions and an impressive central building. You can see it from every corner of Sorano!

You enter this incredible building from the south, through a traventine arch crowned by an inscription and a marble coat of arms belonging to Niccolò IV Orsini – the father of Sorano himself. Keep an eye out for the heraldic bear – the symbol of the Orsini Counts.

Both bastions have recesses for firing on enemies and are connected to series of complicated pipes that made sure the town had an almost unending supply of water.

If you walk into the courtyard, and you should, you’ll find the oldest part of the fortress.

The interiors of this section have been recently renovated and many of the rooms are covered in 16th century frescoes.

Painted by the Sienese School, most of them are still beautifully intact and are dominated by the floral designs favoured by the Orsini, although a few also depict mythological scenes such as La Morte di Didone (The Death of Dido).

The Fortezza Orsini is open to tourists, but you need to be accompanied by a guide.

That’s not really such a negative, as the guides know more than the history of the building and its architecture terms, they also know all about the gossip that plagued the Orsini rule in Sorano. They were a scandalous bunch.

https://maremma-tuscany.com

Fortezza Orsini

Already known in Etruscan and Roman age, from the 6th century center of primary importance of the zone as Episcopalian seat, Sovana was conquered by the Longobard in the years 592-605 and became the most important power center of the zone.

It can seems strange but, despite the relief that the place has always had above all to institutional level, but the history and the evolution of the city  is unknown until the 12th century, due to the lack of documentation.
In the Middle Age we find Sovana as a castle inserted in the territory of the Aldobrandeschi family.
In this period was erected the fortress, that overlook, as a sentinel, the urban inhabited area, and of all the other numerous public buildings and churches.
This fortunate period of maximum shine for Sovana was due to the fact that Ildebrando of Soana, born here,  became Pope, as Gregorio VII�, in the year 1073.

The importance of Sovana decreased more and more and when, in the 14th century, the control of the zone passed to the family of the Orsini, these preferred to assemble their affairs on the new strengthened settlements of Sorano and Pitigliano.
The economic crisis and the prostration for the 'malaria' brought to a notable decrease of the population and the frequent wars between the Orsini and the Senese Republic for the control of the castle didn't help Sovana to rise up again.

The following centuries didn't even serve to reverse the tendency: in 1833 the country counted only 64 inhabitants! Today, although object of numerous restorations, the country also appears solitary and partially abandoned, it counts less than 500 inhabitants.

https://www.castellitoscani.com

Rocca Aldobrandesca - Sovana

Castell'Ottieri is a village in Tuscany, central Italy, administratively a frazione of the comune of Sorano, province of Grosseto, in the tuff area of southern Maremma. At the time of the 2001 census its population amounted to 195.

Castell'Ottieri is about 90 km from Grosseto and 10 km from Sorano, and it is situated along the Provincial Road which links Sorano to Castell'Azzara. Ancient capital of the small County of Ottieri, Castell'Ottieri is now a pittoresque Renaissance village.

The Rocca degli Ottieri

The Palazzo Orsini Museum in Pitigliano is a collection of sacred art housed in the splendid rooms of the 14th-century palace, construction of which began in the 12th century by the Aldobrandeschi family: in 1312, the building passed to the Romano Orsini family, under whom it was fortified with three circular towers connected by perimeter walls. In 1465, the palace was enlarged for the marriage of Niccolò III Orsini, and in 1520, the structure was further fortified under the direction of Antonio di Sangallo the Younger. After passing into the hands of the Dukes of Tuscany, it was given to the Sovana diocese in 1793.

The museum brings together works of silver and gold, coins, wooden sculptures, panel and canvas paintings, precious textiles, funerary materials, manuscripts and medieval books.

In one of the palace’s rooms, historically called the room of the Loggette, is a cycle of portraits of the Orsini family and a series of paintings depicting the Madonna and Child by Jacopo dalla Quercia, Madonna and Child by Guidoccio Cozzarelli, a wooden statue of Niccolò III and paintings by Francesco Zuccarelli.

https://www.visittuscany.com

Palazzo Orsini

The castle was named for the first time in 833 A.D. on a document of the San Salvatore Abbey but the reports brought to light during the recent excavations, started in 1997, revealed no traces antecedent to the 11th century. At that time the monks of San Salvatore Abbey began to vindicate the possession of Selvena accusing the Aldobrandeschi to have taken it illegally. The feudal family won the quarrel, but in the following centuries the fortress continued to be object of desire, suffered seriously damage under the siege of Fredrick Barbarossa at the mid-13th century and subsequently was again disputed between the powerful towns of Siena and Grosseto. Only at the mid-14th century Siena took control on this territory, but only for few years. Selvena became first part of the fief of Pitigliano, controlled by the Orsini family, and then of the Grand Duke of Tuscany.

The fortress’ ruins dominate the landscape. Today is still easy to recognize the traces of its trapezoidal shaped double walled enclosure: the external walls encircled the inhabited area and the inner the feudal palace. To the eastern extremity of the inner walls, just over the main gate, rises a splendid tower with a pentagonal form that played the function of keep. This tower was added to the fortress to increase the defences immediately after the Barbarossa's siege. The quality of the construction is still today clear, it was built with fine worked stones of the highest quality and testifies the wealth of the castle's owners. This side of the fortification is also the only one not defended by the natural precipices of the rocks and the walls have here their vertex creating a barbican at defence of the entrance.

http://www.monte-amiata.eu

Rocca Silvana (Castell'Azzara)

Il castello di Triana è situato nell'omonima frazione a est di Roccalbegna, che sorse come antico insediamento rurale nel primo Medioevo.
Storia e descrizione
Il luogo è ricordato fin dal 760, ma l'esistenza del castello è attestata solo dalla divisione dei beni degli Aldobrandeschi del 1216, quando fu assegnato al ramo di Santa Fiora. Nel 1388 la Triana fu acquistata dalla famiglia senese dei Piccolomini che lo fecero divenire sede di una signoria rurale nel corso del Cinquecento.

I Piccolomini rimasero proprietari del castello e dei terreni circostanti fino al 1962, quando il castello, notevolmente trasformato e con scarsi resti delle forme originarie, è stato lasciato alla Società di esecutori di pie disposizioni di Siena. L'antico castello medievale è racchiuso all'interno di una cinta muraria con un'unica porta d'accesso: il complesso comprende anche un torrione che costituiva la residenza signorile e due fabbricati disposti intorno ad un cortile.

Castello di Triana

Since the 11th century the area of southern Tuscany around the castle of Piancastagnaio was the object of the expansionist politics of the powerful feudal family of the Aldobrandeschi.

The whole territory is rich in historical remains tied to these potentates. Between the possessions of the Aldobrandeschi, Piancastagnaio was almost always the site of allotted to the noble family from the monks of the Abbey of S.Salvatore since the beginning of the year 1000. Subsequently it was claimed from the Viscounts of Campiglia and during the 13th century it became object of ulterior disputes between the cities of Siena and Orvieto.
The Orvietani gained control of the powerful fortress in the 1303 and maintained it for around fifty years. At this point they entered in the quarrel with the heirs of the Aldobrandeschi, the Orsini of Pitigliano, to oppose the new aims of the Senese Republic. Only between the years 1415 and 1430 Siena finally succeeded to taking possession of Piancastagnaio, that was attached to the Capitanato of Radicofani. In 17th century the settlement became a Granducal fief and finally, with the Leopoldine reforms, the chief town of the the same community.

The country town has a circular form, once had surrounding wall enclosure with alternating square towers and four gates. The walls and the gates have been almost entirely demolished, with the exception of few lines, three towers, two with semicircular shape and the other squared, the main city Gate beside the Rocca and other three minor Gates in the southern front of the walls: 'Porta Romana', 'Porticciola' e 'Porta di Voltaia'.
In the highest point of the inhabited area rises still today the mighty Rocca Aldobrandesca.

The construction has a square form and is endowed with tall and strongly inclined walls. From the enclosure rises two towers , the greatest, either as thickest, had functions of keep, the other, in the opposite angle, defended the underlying gate of access to the city.

The whole complex was endowed with machicoulis and battlement, still today almost intact. The Rocca is under good condition thanks to careful work of restoration.

https://www.castellitoscani.com

 The Aldobrandeschi (Piancastagnaio)

Tuscany is home to countless charming small towns, villages, art, undiscovered areas, rolling hills, vineyards and the sea. One of these fascinating places is Manciano, let's have a look around. 

Manciano is located in the south of Tuscany, in the province of Grosseto, and is part of the area known as “Maremma” or the "tufa area", due to its geological characteristics. It’s a small town of less than 8,000 inhabitants that was once surrounded by more than 5 km of walls; that were built in the thirteenth century before being restored in the fifteenth century.

Today the walls have been incorporated into the city center, but you can still glimpse them every so often, woven into the architecture of the town. Of the original eleven towers, only two are visible today, one in via Trento and one on the left side of the Fiorella Door. 
At the highest point of the town you can see the Rocca Aldobrandesca, an imposing crenellated building, probably built around the twelfth century. It has been much altered over the centuries and it was often the object of repeated and numerous battles due to its strategic location. It's naturally also a great vantage point from which you can see the sea.

https://www.visittuscany.com

The Rocca Aldobrandesca

Your first glimpse of the Rocca Aldobrandesca in Roccalbegna will take your breath away. Have you beseeching the driver of your car - if that isn't you - to stop so that you can take a photograph. And fill you with excited anticipation of exploring it and its colourful town below.

Whilst nearly every medieval castle, tower, or fortress I have reconnoitered in Maremma - and there are a lot - is strategically positioned overlooking the local terrain, la Rocca Aldobrandesca in Roccalbegna is different.


 
Not because it wasn't built on the highest point; it so obviously was. But because the "sasso" on which it is built and from which it takes it's local name of "Il Sasso" or La Pietra" (both meaning stone in Italian), only had room for the fortress and nothing else. Two, tight levels of nothing else of irregular in shape, following as it had to, the topography of its rock.

It is what children's nursery rhymes and story books are made of. For whoever first sang the children's nursery rhyme,

"I'm the king of the castle.
And you're the dirty rascal."

must have been sat looking at "La Rocca" when they did so.
A stunning location and a stunning view from its ramparts, but only for those few who lived within its walls. The rest lived down below, within the walled town for which it kept look out.