Five kilometres from Siena near Castelnuovo Berardenga, on the top of a hill covered in vineyards, stands the Villa di Geggiano. Owned by the Bianchi Bandinelli family from the first half of the 16 C, was originally a much smaller lodge, which in 1768, was transformed into a grand villa with a garden and its own chapel on the occasion of the wedding of Anton Domenico Bianchi Bandinelli and Cecilia Chigi.
Renovated between 1780 and 1790, it forms, together with the surrounding garden, a very unusual complex, both from the historical and the landscaping point of view.
A long tree-lined avenue, with cypresses in the first part and holm oaks further on, leads all the way to the entrance gate, parallel to the Teatro di Verzura, the outdoor theatre on the south side of the garden.
Villa Geggiano, which dates back to the 13th century, houses a hall frescoed in 1790 by Ignazio Moder, a travelling Tyrolean painter.

Musica Reale is a recently started initiative to bring together members of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, in a variety of formations, for the performance of chamber music in all its aspects. All instruments being available in the orchestra, the choice of programming is enormous.

Today's Villa di Geggiano was originally a rural construction which most likely dated back to the beginning of the 14th century. After being given to the Bianchi Bandinelli family (that has among his ancestors the Pope Alexander the 3rd), as the dowry of Girolama Santi when she married Girolamo Bandinelli in 1527, it was enlarged by adding a few rooms in keeping with the rebirth of spending summer vacations at a place in the country. Its appearance today is the result of radical rebuilding carried out during the marriage of Anton Domenico Bianchi Bandinelli with Cecilia Chigi Zondadari, which took place in 1768. The exceptional condition of the dwelling - the villa and the gardens -, including the perfectly kept, original 18th century treasure of furniture and decorations, is due not only to the stories of the various families that owned it in the past but also to the effort of the famous archeologist and art historian Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli (1900 - 1975), who made it his main residence and wrote about his love for the place and its preservation in order to share these things with his descendants, who today live and work there, a very special place indeed. In the year 2000 a major restoration project was started on both the villa and the gardens.

Architectural and artistic data

In addition to the Green Theater (Open Air Theatre), the villa has a very nice entrance room, which was painted in 1790 by Ignazio Moder, portraying the twelve months of the year, and a few rooms where one finds the original furniture in 'veneziano rustico' style and original French wall paper (Papiers Peintes) and fabrics (Toile de Jouy).

Park and Garden

The Villa di Geggiano and its gardens have been declared a Monumento Nazionale and constitute a phenomenon which is unique both historically and in terms of landscape gardening: its organic conservation of furniture and decorations take the visitor back to the atmosphere of an elegant 18th century vacation house. In the gardens, which are decorated with groups of century-old cypress trees, a parterre of boxtrees and hundreds of potted lemon trees, one finds the quaint Teatro di Verzura with two, late-baroque prosceniums in brickwork, decorated by the Maltese sculptor Bosio. Through one of the several, intermittent, monumental gates in the surrounding walls, one arrives at the Pomario, a mixture of flowerbeds and vegetable garden decorated with topiaries and a terrace fish pond from where one has a magnificent view over the neqrby city of Siena. It was in the Teatro di Verzura that Vittorio Alfieri staged a tragedy of his during one of his many stays at Geggiano, as a guest of Mario Bianchi Bandinelli, with whom he was very close friends.

Gardens in Tuscany | Villa di Geggiano

Villa di Monaciano, built from 1870 and 1885, by the noble Alessandro Pucci Sansedoni, coming from Siena but living in Florence. Following the spirit of renewal that reigned in Florence during that age, he built a completely innovating complex with villa and garden: moving the entrance road, pulling down the old walls that surrounded the garden and creating a lovely romantic park, in the wake of the parks designed by architects like Poggi in Florence. In terms of the architectural culture it expresses, the villa seems quite far removed from the Siennese tradition, having more in common with Florentine architecture of the second half of the 19 C. The building has three floors and the façade is divided into three parts by pilasters.

Gardens in Tuscany | Villa di Monaciano

Founded in 1343 and reconstructed in the second half of ‘500, already property of the Camaldolites, with its church, its priest’s house and its three cloisters it became one of the most beautiful carthusian monasteries in the territory.
In the fourteenth century, the Carthusian Order was expanding throughout Italy, and Tuscany was one of their favorite locations. Several monasteries were set up: first among these, the monastery at Maggiano. Later on, two Carthusian monasteries or Certose were built, one at Belriguardo, and one at Pontignano. The church preserves certain 14 C features, such as the thick surrounding walls and the arcades. The chapel, later painted with frescoes by Nasini, was built to host it. The monastery has three cloister gardens. Two are traditional grass rectangles and one is now a renaissance parterre garden.
The former monastery of Pontignano has three cloister gardens.

In 1959, Certosa di Pontignano was purchased by the University of Siena, who then turned it into a university residence.

Montegiachi is located on an embankment over the top of the hill, that dominates the surrounding valley. It was built here on behalf of Antonio Maria of Checco Cinughi, ances one of the Cinghi Counts' several properties in Castelnuovo territory. It has certainly been built before 1522, when Antonio Maria, in his will, left the Villa to his sons Valerio and Alessandro. In 1827, after a careful survey on the villa and outhouses, some parts of the building have been restored.

Vagliagli, very beautiful borgo in a panoramic position, is situated along the provincial road that leads to Radda in Chianti. The name Vagliagli means Valley of Garlics. The wild garlic appears indeed even into the town's coat of arms: a hand holding a bunch of garlic.
The first citation about the splendid village of Vagliagli, ancient hamlet of the XIII century, dates back to 1226 and tells of the Romanesque Church of St Cristoforo, of which you can still find some traces into classic lines of the current bell-tower. Beside the church you can make out in the distance the ruins of a building made in "filaretto di alberese", a special type of grey and and yellow clayey limestone, with traces of the ancient ogive arch portal.
Inside the Church of St Cristoforo, on the left, there's a fresco painted by the Sienese School dating to the XVI century, representing St Cristoforo, St Bernardino and St Sebastiano.

Il Parco Sculture del Chianti Over the years public and private initiatives have been developed on this fertile cultural soil, involving various bodies in experimentation with new itineraries for a cultural crossing of the territory. The Chianti Sculpture Park, which began with the dream of its director Piero Giadrossi, consists of twenty-three works set in 13 hectares of wood in front of the old brick works in Pievasciata. The small hamlet of Pievasciata, with its church of San Giovanni Battista, dating back to the XI century, is just one kilometer away.
Loc. La Fornace S.P. 9 53010 Pievasciata (Siena)

www.chiantisculpturepark.it

The Castello di Brolio rises in the centre of the Sienese Chianti area, at approximately half way between Castelnuovo Berardenga and Gaiole in Chianti.
Brolio castle is strongly connected to the Ricasoli Firidolfi family, who were invested as lords of Brolio by Frederick Barbarossa in 1167.
Today Brolio resembles no longer a manor house, but a Neo Gothic Villa, as a result of works carried out in 1861 for Baron Bettino Ricasoli.
Although the castle is private, it is open for visits. And it is still possible to complete the walk of the ramparts, from which we can have splendid sights on the Chianti region.