Sovicille

The Republic of Siena, which governed itself democratically, allowed the comuni of its countryside to give themselves a statute, that is laws of their own: Sovicille had them from 1238, modified them in 1293 and rewrote them in 1303 — and it is this last version that has come down to us. It lasted until the Medici bought from the emperor Charles V the whole territory of the Republic of Siena, for two million ducats. They abolished every democratic institution and brought feudalism back: Sovicille too became a fief, and the feudatory the Medici installed took for himself the imposing fortifications that defended the only way into the village and turned them into his own villa.

In the Middle Ages the harshest part of the Montagnola was planted with saffron, the only spice of western origin: by carrying one year's harvest to France, a family could come back a merchant. Further off, in the Colline Metallifere, there was silver, of which early medieval Europe had no greater source — and the great merchant and banking houses of Siena at once sought to associate themselves wherever it was extracted, because silver meant minting, and minting meant international finance. Of those mining villages there remain two uninhabited castles, Montarrenti and one called Castiglion che Dio sol sa, Castiglion that God alone knows. From 1240 Siena drained the Padule d'Orgia with a consortium company that gave itself its own statutes, and on the Merse there still stand a weir called the steccaia and three great grain mills in a row. And two pievi face each other a short way apart, San Giovanni Battista al ponte allo Spino and San Giusto a Balli: they mark the friction between the bishop-counts of Siena and those of Volterra.