The town stands in the middle of its own lagoon, joined to Monte Argentario by a road built on an artificial embankment that cut the sheet of water in two; until 1944 a railway ran along that causeway as well. From 1557 Orbetello was the capital of the State of the Presidi, a Spanish possession occupying the Tuscan coast from Talamone to Capalbio, and it stayed foreign ground for two and a half centuries: Austrian from 1707 to 1736, then part of the Kingdom of Naples under the Bourbons, and only after Napoleon did it pass to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. A good number of Spanish surnames have remained among the inhabitants. Earlier still, in the fifteenth century, the Sienese had taken the fortress, and Siena — which longed for that outlet to the sea — took the whole territory three years later.
There is one lord, however, that outlasted them all. In 1074 pope Gregory the Seventh gave half the castle of Orbetello, together with Ansedonia and Monte Argentario, to the Roman abbey of the Tre Fontane, confirming a donation said to have been made by Charlemagne and pope Leo the Third, which is held to be a forgery. The abbey's feudal rights ended with the Spanish conquest, but its spiritual rights did not: the cure of these places stayed with it until 1981, when the abbey's rights were incorporated into the new diocese. Nine centuries. The name, meanwhile, may come from the Latin herbetum, «grassy place», or from the joining of orbis and tellum, land surrounded — which is exactly what Orbetello is. And from this lagoon, between 1927 and 1933, the air cruises of Italo Balbo took off.
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📅 Every year, on the two central weekends of May, postponed from the calendar date of 3 February
Orbetello celebrates Saint Blaise during the May festivities, on the two central weekends of the month, postponed from the actual calendar date of 3 February. At the same time, the Corsa dei barchini is held, a traditional maritime palio in the lagoon's waters among the town's five districts.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside Orbetello, but an easy day trip away.
