Piancastagnaio

The comune of Piancastagnaio was born in the course of the thirteenth century as a community of interests between artisans, herdsmen and cultivators: here the woods of tall firs were worth a great deal, wanted for ships' masts and for building. But it was too weak to aim at real political independence, and so it behaved accordingly — it always looked for a protector who, in exchange for a tribute and the use of the fortress, would defend it militarily while respecting its administrative and economic autonomy. That is a definition the village gives of itself, and it explains all the rest: the lands had belonged to the abbey of San Salvatore since the eighth century, then came the Aldobrandeschi of Sovana, who died out in 1284, then Orvieto and Siena disputed the place, and at last, in 1440, Piancastagnaio entered the Republic of Siena, which sent it a podestà. And it stayed loyal to Siena as long as Siena existed.

In 1601 the grand duke of Tuscany granted the village in fief to the marquis Giovanni Battista Bourbon del Monte, who had been a general of the infantry of the Venetian republic: with him and his successors the marquisate took the boundaries the comune still has today. The marquis gave the money to repair the church of the Madonna di San Pietro and the convent of San Bartolomeo, had a hundred fruit-bearing chestnuts planted and built himself a palace with gardens. Feudal rule ended in 1777. In the twentieth century mercury arrived, with the mines of the Siele, and in the village there is a monument to the miner. Since 1954, every eighteenth of August, the palio is run: a bareback horse race between the four contrade, Borgo, Castello, Coro and Voltaia. Until 2022 it was run in the municipal stadium, where for the occasion a sand track was laid around the football pitch; since 2023 there is a purpose-built place, the equestrian park near the sanctuary of the Madonna di San Pietro.