FROM THE LOMBARDS TO THE PRESENT DAY
What makes Monte Sante Marie unlike anywhere else is the extraordinary accumulation of architectural, social, demographic, agricultural, environmental and cultural layers that has continued, virtually without interruption, for thirteen hundred years.
Throughout the hamlet, the estate, its old farmsteads and the surrounding countryside, traces of all this are everywhere. Some are immediately visible; others reveal themselves only to the attentive eye; some barely emerge at all. Others still lie buried or hidden, waiting to be discovered.
After thirty years here, hardly a day goes by without the pleasure of being surprised by some new discovery, large or small, that this place continues to offer us.
FROM FORTRESS TO HAMLET, FROM FREE COMMUNE TO FARMING ESTATE
Monte Sante Marie is, first and foremost, a kind of open book of living architecture.
Early medieval foundations emerge from beneath the buildings. Sections of the castle walls and defensive structures have survived despite the repeated sieges and destruction suffered by the castle between the 12th and 16th centuries — including a bastion whose interior still holds its mysteries. Underground passages, some still accessible, run beneath the hamlet and connect its buildings.
There are manor houses and farmhouses of every size, some protected for their architectural and historical importance; secret and long-lost rooms; labyrinthine cellars that unexpectedly come back to light; and, with them, inscriptions, carvings, drawings, paintings, graffiti, dates and signatures left behind by the fifty generations of people who have lived here.
And then there is a former castle, convent and commandery of the Order of Malta, with a mysterious history and an extraordinary setting.
The story of Monte Sante Marie’s gradual transformation — from feudal stronghold to castle, from fortified hamlet to free commune and finally to farming estate — has yet to be fully reconstructed. The archives continue to yield new discoveries and suggest new avenues of research into both the distant and more recent past: vanished buildings, forgotten uses, concealed spaces and roads that have disappeared from memory.
Monte Sante Marie is tangible evidence of the way a settlement has adapted architecturally, century after century, to changing historical, economic and social circumstances.
KEEPING A HISTORIC PLACE ALIVE
ADSI — the Italian Historic Houses Association, of which Monte Sante Marie is a member — launched a series of study days entitled Le dimore storiche oggi (“Historic Houses Today”), exploring how owners are actually approaching the conservation and continued use of historic properties: why particular projects were undertaken, the difficulties encountered and the results achieved.
On 30 January 2025, the Fondazione CR Firenze Auditorium hosted the first event, I Soci ADSI della Toscana si raccontano (“ADSI Tuscany Members Tell Their Stories”), coordinated by Tomaso Marzotto Caotorta, President of ADSI Tuscany.
The day examined a number of real cases involving historic properties in Tuscany through the experiences of their owners, the professionals who assisted them and representatives of the relevant heritage authorities.
Stefano Tesi and architect Gianni Bulian, former Superintendent for Siena and Grosseto, presented the case of Monte Sante Marie and its continuing struggle not merely to survive, but to remain alive.
Whatch theri presentation here:
