Monteriggioni is a tiny, perfectly preserved walled village crowning a low hill in the Tuscan hills, built by the Republic of Siena around 1213 as a frontier fortress against Florence. Its circular curtain wall is studded with fourteen towers, and within sits a single small square, a Romanesque church, and a handful of houses. For pilgrims on the Via Francigena it was, and remains, an unforgettable landmark on the approach to Siena.
Highlights
- An unbroken ring of walls and fourteen towers crowning its low hill
- Dante's Inferno image of giants circling like Monteriggioni's towers
- Walls never taken by storm through three centuries of sieges
- The 1554 betrayal when the garrison commander handed over the keys
- Timbro in the village or at the Abbadia a Isola pilgrim halt
At a glance
| Period | Medieval (13th century) |
|---|---|
| Stage | 15 — Corbeny to Reims |
Take care
- Low rails in places on the rampart walkways — mind children
- Uneven cobbles through the village
History
Siena's new border fortress was complete by about 1219, and for three centuries it did its work: Florentine sieges from 1244 onward broke against walls that by tradition were never taken by storm. The end came in April 1554, when the garrison commander Giovannino Zeti handed the keys to Medici forces without a fight, remembered ever since as the great betrayal. Siena itself capitulated the following year, and Monteriggioni settled into the quiet farming village whose walls survive intact.
Myth & legend
Dante immortalised Monteriggioni in the Inferno, comparing its ring of towers to the giants encircling the lowest pit of Hell: 'as on its round wall Montereggion crowns itself with towers'. The image has fixed the village in the European imagination ever since.
Geology
Monteriggioni's walls are calcare cavernoso, a pitted, spongy-looking Triassic dolomitic breccia that Sienese builders prized as tower stone, quarried in the nearby Montagnola Senese. That low wooded massif is an island of far older rock, riddled with karst caves and veined with marble, standing proud of the young marine sands and clays of the Elsa valley.
Wildlife & nature
The walls look out over the Montagnola Senese, a Natura 2000 area of holm oak, Turkey oak, chestnut and hornbeam woods running with wild boar, roe deer, foxes, badgers and porcupines. Broom and cistus flower on the dry limestone in May, and vineyards and olive groves fill the hollow immediately below the ramparts.
The view
The unbroken ring of walls and fourteen towers crowns its low hill exactly as Dante saw it; on the Francigena approach the crown rises slowly above olive groves and vines.
Photography
The classic shot is from the fields below the walls in late light; inside, frame the church across the single piazza, and take the wall walkway for tower-top views.
When to visit
April to June and September are loveliest; July brings the medieval festival that fills the village, and high summer means real heat on the shadeless approach roads.
Getting there
Walkers arrive through Abbadia a Isola on the Siena stage; buses between Poggibonsi and Siena stop below the village, and the nearest station is at Castellina Scalo.
Where to stay
The Ostello Contessa Ava dei Lambardi, a former monastery at Abbadia a Isola shortly before the village, is a classic pilgrim halt; rooms and B&Bs sit within the walls.
Food & water
The village is tiny: a fountain and a couple of bars serve the piazza, so top up here and carry enough for the open, sun-exposed stretch onward towards Siena.
Safety
Rampart walkways have low rails in places — mind children — and the village cobbles are uneven. In an emergency dial 112.
Accessibility
A short, steady climb leads from the car park to the gates; within, the piazza is level gravel, while the wall walkways are reached by steep modern stairs.
Visitor tips
Read Dante's lines before you arrive, collect a timbro in the village or at Abbadia a Isola, and time your visit for early morning before the coaches climb the hill.
The guide, in full
The written guide to this site.
Somewhere on the road south, you lift your eyes and there it is: a complete ring of medieval walls crowning a gentle hill, fourteen towers spaced around the rim like the points of a crown. Monteriggioni looks almost too perfect to be true, yet nothing you see is a reconstruction. This is a genuine fortress of the Republic of Siena, raised between the years twelve thirteen and twelve nineteen on the hill called Monte Ala, and it has kept its shape for eight hundred years. Siena built it for one reason: Florence. The two republics contested these hills for generations, and Monteriggioni was Siena's northern sentinel, planted squarely beside the old road to watch for trouble, and to shelter the travellers streaming along the Via Francigena. Walk up to the walls and take their measure. The curtain runs about five hundred and seventy metres around the crown of the hill, following the natural curve of the ground, with the towers set almost evenly along it. There are two gates, and their names tell you the whole story of this road: the Porta Fiorentina faces north towards Florence, while the Porta Franca, also called the Porta Romea, opens south towards Rome, the pilgrim's door, once defended by a portcullis and a drawbridge. Pass beneath its archway and you step into a village you can cross in two minutes: a single square, the Piazza Roma, a simple Romanesque church dedicated to Santa Maria Assunta, a well, and a handful of stone houses with kitchen gardens behind them. Those gardens are original too, for in time of siege the village had to feed itself inside its own ring of stone. Dante knew this place. In the Inferno, when he wants to describe the ring of giants standing around the lowest pit of Hell, he reaches for the image every Tuscan traveller would recognise: as Monteriggioni crowns itself with towers, he writes, so the giants towered over the rim of the abyss. It is a startling thought, standing here in the sunshine among rosemary and roses, that this small circle of stone gave European literature one of its darkest images. The fortress saw plenty of fighting through the thirteen and fourteen hundreds, and its garrison beat off more than one assault, yet the walls were never taken by storm. When Monteriggioni finally changed hands, in fifteen fifty-four, it was through a quiet bargain: the captain of the garrison simply handed the keys to Florentine forces, an act the Sienese remembered with lasting bitterness. After that the wars moved on, the fortress lost its purpose, and centuries of sleepy obscurity did what no army could: they preserved it whole. Today you can walk sections of the ramparts and look out as the sentries once did, north over oak woods and vineyards, south towards a smudge on the horizon that is Siena. Take a slow turn around the little piazza, fill your water bottle as generations of pilgrims have done, and rest a while in the shade of the church. Then step out through the Porta Romea and feel the small ceremony of it, because for eight centuries walking out of this gate has meant one thing only. You are on the road to Siena, and beyond it, Rome.
Common questions
How old is Monteriggioni?
Monteriggioni dates from the Medieval (13th century) period.
How do I get to Monteriggioni?
Walkers arrive through Abbadia a Isola on the Siena stage; buses between Poggibonsi and Siena stop below the village, and the nearest station is at Castellina Scalo.
Is Monteriggioni accessible?
A short, steady climb leads from the car park to the gates; within, the piazza is level gravel, while the wall walkways are reached by steep modern stairs.
When is the best time to visit Monteriggioni?
April to June and September are loveliest; July brings the medieval festival that fills the village, and high summer means real heat on the shadeless approach roads.
Is there food and water at Monteriggioni?
The village is tiny: a fountain and a couple of bars serve the piazza, so top up here and carry enough for the open, sun-exposed stretch onward towards Siena.
Where can I stay near Monteriggioni?
The Ostello Contessa Ava dei Lambardi, a former monastery at Abbadia a Isola shortly before the village, is a classic pilgrim halt; rooms and B&Bs sit within the walls.
What should I know before visiting Monteriggioni?
Read Dante's lines before you arrive, collect a timbro in the village or at Abbadia a Isola, and time your visit for early morning before the coaches climb the hill.
Is Monteriggioni safe to visit?
Rampart walkways have low rails in places — mind children — and the village cobbles are uneven. In an emergency dial 112.
Nearby on the route
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