The Castle of Tornano is easily accessible following the main road Strada Statale 408 from Siena to the Chianti, then following the signs to the town of the Palio. The nice manor is on top of a knoll, in the pulsating hearth of real Chianti; it has one of most charming and architectonically particular keeps of Tuscany. Already in the first years after 1000, Tornano was historically known as curtis and its name, since then, had been mentioned often as place of drawing up of contracts, as it is inferable from the precious documents kept in the nearby Abbey of Coltibuono. The castle belonged to the Sienese lord Guarnellotto dei Mezzolombrardi who lost it in 1163 at the hands of Frederick I, because he had risen up against his power. The emperor gave it to Ranieri de’ Firidolfi Ricasoli, but only on paper, because Guarnellotto, backed up by Siena, kept the control over Tornano and the nearby castle of Campi, both places of his bold and legendary deeds. Only when the castle became part of the Florentine country, after the arbitrator’s award of Poggibonsi, it was definitively taken away from Guarnellotto, but Siena didn’t want to renounce to it, because, thanks to its position over the stream Massellone, it was an important piece of Chianti chessboard.
In 1229, after a long siege, the Sienese armyconquered it, but only for six years … In 1235 the Sienese lost definitively their sovereignty over Tornano. In 1400 the Ricasoli family fortified it so well that it withstood during the harsh Aragonese invasions. But nothing could be done in 1530 when the imperial troops conquered it. Today, most of the walls and many other buildings do not exist anymore, there is only the stone keep with its particular trapezoidal shape overlooking the knoll and reminding us of its long history.(Portions of this article first appeared in "Toscana & Chianti News")
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