Castello di Montegufoni

The Castello di Montegufoni (the castle of Montegufoni - literally the castle of the mount of the large owls ) is located at the center of the Toscane, to 20 km in the south of Florence, in the hamlet of Montagnana close to Montespertoli.

Montegufoni is drawn up on old the Via Volterrana , the road borrowed by Charlemagne and other emperors to join Florence or Rome and which passes to Volterra and His.

Originally the castle belongs to the Ormanni, a family quoted by Dante in the Divine comedy .

History

In 1135, Florentins send a punitive forwarding to destroy the castle. It is left in ruins until in the years 1200 when the property is bought by the Acciaiuoli.

Gugliarello is the first owner. Its descendants grow rich enormously thanks to a new banking system and towards the end of the 13th century, Montegufoni became a castle with a series of seven buildings surrounded by walls: seven old villas of the ancestral castle of Montegufoni mentioned in an inscription of the castle.

In 1310, Niccolò Acciaiuoli - which became then Grand Seneshal of Naples and expensive friend of Boccace and Pétrarque - is born here in the room from the castle, called today the capella .

In 1348, the king Louis I {{er}} of Naples distant from his kingdom by the king of Hungary takes refuge with its Prime Minister with Montegufoni. It with the practice of banqueter with the bishop Angelo Acciaiuoli in the room of the banquets (room now called It Teatro ) which gives on the part of the castle called today Cortile dei Duchi (Court of the Dukes).

In 1386, the tower and other parts are built by Donato Acciaiuoli which is at the same time duke of Athens, Senator de Rome and Gonfalonier of the République of Florence.

In 1396, Donato threatens to reform Florence and it is overcome and driven out republic, but its goods (Montegufoni included/understood) are saved confiscation by his/her cardinal brother. The three wire of Donato resided at the Court of Athens until one of them, Agnolo di Jacopo, turns over to Montegufoni with his/her son (the duke Francesco) and his cousin (from there probably the name of the Court of the Dukes).

In 1546, another Donato restores the tower on the model of the Torre of Arnolfo of the Palazzo Vecchio of Florence and built the room of weapons (room called today the Gallery ) and for this period Montegufoni becomes the point of meeting of the artists florentins and all the parts of the world.

In 1612, Cosme II of Médicis is invited to Montegufoni.

About 1650, Donato with his wife Anna Maria Altoviti restores all the castle, such as we see it today, by connecting the seven buildings hitherto separate.

The castle continues to be the social center of the life florentine during all the 17th century and the 18th century, until the decline of the Acciaioli family, which sells it with the family Baracchi.

Later, in 1909, Sir George Sitwell, an English eccentric, falls in love with the splendid structure of Montegufoni and decides to buy it in the name of his/her son Sir Osbert Sitwell. Consequently Sitwell start to enrich and embellish the castle, which gives, inter alia, the part decorated with frescos by Gino Severini in 1922.

During the Second world war

Works like the Adorazione dei Magi of Domenico Ghirlandaio, Primavera (Spring) of Sandro Botticelli and the Madonna d' Ognissanti by Giotto di Bondone are hidden in Montegufoni during the German occupation and then restored with the Galleria degli Uffizi of Florence at the end of the War.

The barons Sitwell made of them an important arts center attended per many writers and especially American and English artists.

In 1966, Sir Osbert, become a highly skilled British writer, is established definitively with the castle. Reached Parkinson's disease, he dies in 1969.

In 1972, Reresby Sitwell sells the castle with the current owner Sergio Posarelli who consequently starts to restore it to make castle of Montegufoni a famous tourist lodging house.

Today

The castle, like much of places of residence in Tuscany, is transformed during the beautiful season into apartments or rooms of reception for the marriages and other demonstrations.

The framework is typical with its multiple flowered terraces and its lemon trees out of pots, its fig trees, its plantations of olive-trees and its own vineyards in the immediate neighborhoods.

The vestiges of frescos in Grotta located under the first terrace point out the artistic proximity of Florence and the prestigious past of the castle.

Its church San Lorenzo contains a fresco of Giovanni Domenico Ferretti painter Rococo of the school florentine.

Internal bonds

External bonds and sources

Official site
Page of the site of the town of Montespertoli
The Roberts Commission: Records off the American Commission for the Protection and Salvage off Artistic and Historic Monuments in War Areas (1943-1946)
Osbert Sitwell: the man who lost itself (1933), translated from English by the baroness Of Bourdieu. White collection, Gallimard - Romanian. ISBN 2070260100.
Edith Sitwell: English eccentrics (1988), translated from English by Michele Hechter. Collection the Walker, Gallimard - nouv. ISBN 2876530627.

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