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Manciano
Picturesque Castello di Scerpena, close to Manciano, in Maremma, has a turret and just a few bedrooms in the main body, but also comes with an annexe and two villas in the
470-acre estate. €16 million through Savills (020–7016 3754;
www.savills.com/international)
Hot mists envelop the heart of the borgo, rising from a pool of thermal waters where St Catherine of Siena and Lorenzo de’ Medici once bathed. The pool’s walls and many of the village buildings, including the simple but atmospheric church, date from the days of Il Magnifico, or shortly afterwards. This is, after all, Renaissance
country. It’s in Val D’Orcia, for exam- ple, that Pope Pius II decided to build the perfect town so dear to the heart of 15th- and 16th-century Humanists. After becoming Pope, he set out to
turn his birthplace of Pienza—then known as Corsignano—into the Città Ideale conceived by Renaissance visionaries. He commissioned the architect Bernardo Rossellino, who planned the town around a beautiful trapezoidal piazza lined with a mag- nificent sandstone cathedral,
the
elegant, hugely expensive papal resi- dence—which cost a phenomenal 50,000 florins—and many under- stated palazzi. However, the most famous of
Val d’Orcia’s borghi is, undoubtedly, Montalcino, the fortified hilltop
42 Country Life International, Spring 2014
town where one of Italy’s most famous wines, Brunello, is made. Records show that red wine was already being produced in the area in the Middle Ages, when Montalcino was entangled in the many religious and political conflicts that ravaged Tuscany, including the 1260 Battle of Montaperti, which was ended by an act of treachery immortalised by Dante in the Divine Comedy. However, the town’s vinous for-
tunes really began in the 19th century, when the Biondi-Santi fam- ily developed a rich, luscious wine that aged beautifully. Brunello quickly acquired a reputation for quality that made it popular with connoisseurs worldwide.
www.countrylife.co.uk/international
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