Castello di Montegufoni

Montegufoni stands on the old Via Volterrana about 20 kilometres south-west of Florence, in what is now the comune of Montespertoli. The road joined Florence to Volterra and Siena and carried Charlemagne and other emperors on their way to Florence or Rome; after Florence's definitive subjection of Volterra in 1472 it took on a further strategic value for the trade in salt and in mineral ore. The castle's exact creation date is unknown, though a first structure was probably raised on the site during the 10th or 11th centuries. Its first lords were the Ormanni, a noble family named by Dante in the Divine Comedy, and it was they who built that first castle.

In 1135 the Florentines attacked Montegufoni and tried to raze it to the ground. The building was left in ruins until the 13th century, when it became the property of Gugliarello Acciaioli. His descendants grew enormously rich on the bank they owned, the Compagna di Ser Leone degli Acciaioli e de' suoi consorti, and towards the end of the 13th century Montegufoni had been rebuilt as a walled complex of a central castle and seven smaller buildings, the "seven old villas of the ancestral castle of Montegufoni" recorded in an inscription in the castle.

Niccolò Acciaiuoli was born at the castle in 1310, in a hall later turned into a chapel. He rose to be Grand Seneschal of the Kingdom of Naples and was a close friend of Boccaccio and Petrarch. In 1348 the King of Naples, Louis of Taranto, banished from his kingdom after his conflict with the King of Hungary, took refuge at Montegufoni with his prime minister. He would banquet there with Bishop Angelo Acciaiuoli in the Banquet Hall, known today as the Theatre, which looks out over the part of the castle now called the Courtyard of the Dukes.

In 1386 Donato Acciaioli, who held the titles of Duke of Athens, Senator of Rome and Gonfaloniere of the Republic of Florence, built the tower that still dominates the castle. Donato was banished from Florence in 1396, but his assets, Montegufoni among them, were saved from confiscation by his brother the cardinal. His three sons resided at the court of Athens until one of them, Agnolo di Jacopo, returned to Montegufoni with his son, Duke Francesco, and his cousin; the name Court of the Dukes probably dates from about that time.

In 1546 another Donato restored the tower on the model of Arnolfo's Tower at the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, and built the armoury now called La Galleria. In this period Montegufoni became a meeting point for many Florentine artists, and in 1612 Cosimo II de' Medici was invited there.

Around 1650 a Donato and his wife Anna Maria Altoviti restored the whole castle, connecting the seven buildings that had until then stood separate and giving it the appearance it still keeps. It remained one of the most famous meeting places of Florentine high society throughout the 17th century and during the 18th as well, until the economic decline of the Acciaioli family, who sold it to the Baracchi.

In 1909 Sir George Sitwell, 4th Baronet, an eccentric Englishman, fell in love with the derelict castle and decided to buy it in the name of his son Osbert, later the 5th Baronet. He set about enriching and embellishing the place, and in the early 1920s brought in the Italian futurist Gino Severini to decorate it. Severini made a series of masks and harlequins for the room called La Sala delle Maschere, and painted an owl among other frescoes dotted around the castle, including a Commedia dell'Arte scene.

During the Second World War 261 works of art were hidden at Montegufoni so that they should not be stolen or damaged, among them the Adoration of the Magi by Domenico Ghirlandaio, the Primavera by Sandro Botticelli and the Ognissanti Madonna by Giotto. The castle was one of many places scattered through the Tuscan countryside used in this way, thanks to the work of men such as Giovanni Poggi, an official of the Fine Arts and director of the Uffizi, and Cesare Fasola, and of ordinary citizens too.

The Sitwell family made the castle an important cultural centre, inviting artists, especially American and English ones. In 1966 Osbert, by then a famous British author, settled at Montegufoni permanently, often living there with his partner, the novelist David Stuart Horner. Struck by Parkinson's disease, he died at the castle in 1969. In 1972 his nephew Sir Reresby Sitwell, 7th Baronet, sold Montegufoni to Sergio Posarelli.

Posarelli restored the castle again after acquiring it in 1972, turning Montegufoni into a luxurious holiday destination. On his death in 2013 it passed to his three children, Cosimo, Guido and Lisa Posarelli. Like many places in Tuscany it has been divided into apartments, and is used today mainly for ceremonies and conferences.

The castle's church of San Lorenzo holds a fresco by Giovanni Domenico Ferretti, a Rococo painter of the Florentine school, and a painted crucifix by Taddeo Gaddi. Its Madonna and Child from the workshop of Lippo di Benivieni, dating from the Trecento, is now preserved at the Museo di Arte Sacra in Montespertoli.