Castello di Tornano: An Early Medieval Castle in Tuscany
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Italy
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval
- Civilizations
- Republic of Florence
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page9 sections
History
Castello di Tornano is an early medieval castle in Italy, near Gaiole in Chianti in Tuscany. Around the year 1000, Tornano was the seat of a curtis, a Latin term for an estate or landed lordship that may here have meant a fortified economic estate. The name appears repeatedly in contracts preserved at Coltibuono Abbey, placing Tornano within the documented network of medieval estates in the area.
Medieval lordship and contested control
The castle later belonged to Guarnellotto de’ Mezzolombardi, a Sienese nobleman. After he rebelled against Frederick Barbarossa, the twelfth-century Holy Roman Emperor, Tornano was confiscated from him in 1167 and granted to Ranieri de’ Firidolfi Ricasoli. The Ricasoli were a prominent Tuscan noble family associated with the Chianti area. Guarnellotto, supported by Siena, nevertheless retained control of Tornano and the nearby Castle of Campi.
After the surrounding territory passed to Florence, a judgment issued at Poggibonsi on 4 June 1203 definitively deprived Guarnellotto of Tornano. Siena reconquered the castle in 1229, but permanently lost control of it in 1235. These changes placed the castle within the shifting political and military contest between the Tuscan powers.
Fortification, capture, and modern conversion
Around 1400, the Ricasoli remodelled the castle and added new defensive works. The strengthened fortifications enabled Tornano to withstand two Aragonese attacks during the fifteenth century. Imperial troops captured the castle in 1530, another episode in its long military history.
By the twentieth century, the castle had fallen into ruin. During the 1970s, Manfredo and Silvana Selvolini renovated the complex and converted it into a hotel complex, giving the surviving structures a new use while retaining elements of the medieval castle.
Remains
Castello di Tornano stands on a hill in the Chianti landscape, approximately 5 kilometres southwest of Gaiole in Chianti and about 13 kilometres northeast of Siena. The surviving complex is centred on a trapezoidal tower, with remains of the former castle walls and moat forming the principal evidence of its fortified layout.
Surviving castle structures
Trapezoidal tower
The trapezoidal tower is the principal surviving structure of Castello di Tornano. It was heightened in recent times, so its present form combines the medieval castle fabric with later alteration.
Walls and moat
Fragments of the former castle walls and the moat survive around the complex. Together with the tower, these remains express the defensive enclosure that was remodelled and strengthened around 1400.
Castle chapel
The castle chapel also survives within the complex. Its later conversion into a wine cellar reflects the changes in function that followed the castle’s ruin and twentieth-century renovation.
Watercourse below the castle
The Torrente Massellone, formerly called the Marsellone, flows a short distance west of the castle. The stream is about 12 kilometres long and joins the Arbia as a left-bank tributary approximately 1.5 kilometres south of Tornano.
