When Montecastelli was purchased in 1993 by the present owners, this beautiful hilltop 'ruin of stone walls' was one of the few historic estates untouched by modern restoration in the Siena Hills. While in neighboring 'Chiantishire' electronic gates had already announced the arrival of the international world over the past 10 years, the Montagnola was still undiscovered and felt remote.
In Montecastelli restoration started in 1993 with cleaning and discovering what lay beneath animal dung and brambles. No water, electricity, gas, not even a functioning road connected Montecastelli in those days to the outside world. It seemed as if its elevated position above the rolling hills of the Val d'Elsa had assured the isolation of this ruined medieval hamlet in a time warp of mystical beauty. Thus, the main core of our efforts to bring Montecastelli back to life has circled around this theme of 'magical beauty'. We must admit, that subsequently we have restored the road, put in telephone lines, even internet connections have found their way up here, but all efforts were directed to restoring only the structurally damaged parts, while maintaining the 'heart of the old' as much as possible choosing preservation over restoration.
In our initial cleaning efforts the floor plan of the original fortress, referred to in Repetti's 19th c. 'Dizionario Corografico della Toscana', emerged after being freed from brambles and layers of flattened out debris from previous construction sites. It seems that the fortress walls of Montecastelli, several times besieged, were finally 'destroyed' in end of the 14th c. in the continual battles between Florence and Siena. We believe that the original ground floor was actually filled with debris from the destruction and later, in the 15th century, when rebuilt with the help of the church, the first floor became the ground floor. The morphology of the surrounding fields underline this, as does the existence of an unusual underground cellar (now the wine cellar) which is not carved from the mountain, as would be usual, but actually is built on its own foundation. Other note worthy artifacts include an almost complete medieval archway on the eastern side of Montecastelli, an 'arrow shooting hole' in the hay barn and a 100 foot deep well completed by hand in stone masonry, an extraordinary feat that is still a mystery as to how it was possible to work at such a depth without suffocating.
A team of students and artists from over 12 different nations including: Brazil, Iran, Poland, Luxemburg, Norway, US, Germany and Switzerland was the main force in the first three years of work to preserve Montecastelli's main building, or the 'Castello'. A solid L- shaped structure with 4 feet thick walls, located at the NE corner of the former fortressed enclave and being the most impressive part of the complex. It still contains the highest percentage of original 'filaretta' masonry and therefore of very solid structure, not needing any added foundations or wall repair, and appears today as it did a thousand years ago. The original roof, height or shape is not known to us, though some documents speak without proof about a crenellation. However due to current building laws a new roof was placed using the original design of the old existing one - the 'Capriata' roof technique, with a key or as locally called 'monaco' (literally 'monk') holding the diagonal roof beams in place without discharging any force to the hypotenuse of the triangular roof configuration. Modern commodities such as Kitchen, Bathrooms, Electricity and heating were added carefully, underlining the simplicity and linear appearance of the building itself. Materials used in our preservation focused on original materials available at the time of construction of Montecastelli itself: lime and limestone (pumice was used as an add-in to the plaster for insulation purposes) and natural coloring agents from our surrounding hills and plants, chestnut beams, and terracotta tiles which were recuperated 100% from Montecastelli itself.
The second step included the difficult restoration of the hay barn and carts hop located on the SE corner of Montecastelli. These two buildings are divided by the old fortress wall, but showed severe damage and were partially collapsed. Reconstructing most of this building, we employed the same techniques as in the middle ages, although we needed to make use of cement and reebars where modern building rules obliged us to do so. In order to avoid any further openings in the ancient and oldest part of the fortressed wall, we placed a staircase on either side of it to connect the two buildings through the old hay barn door.
The third phase aimed at integrating the needs of our newly born farm activities (see Garden and Farm) with the balance of building structures in Montecastelli. A very complicated plan was elaborated with the help of many consultants and was finally approved. This allowed us to finally proceed to convert the remaining animal stables into badly needed olive mill, office, bottling and storage spaces. The largest building on the estate, the historic 'Villa Montecastello' was to be restored for farm rentals, comfortable apartments with a high degree of integration into our farm activities. Basic principles from our previous preservation experience were transferred to this new model, however in many parts restoration was the only answer to the desolate state of the architecture. Notable was the use of a special French lime which was injected into the weaker parts of the old walls of Montecastelli in order to be able to keep as much of it in place as possible. This lime has the ability in its liquid state to creep into every crevice or open channel that has formed in the ancient walls reconnecting every stone to each other by drying slowly to an almost cement like force. This same natural lime was utilized for the remarkable joint filler on the entire facade of this last building being made livable in Montecastelli. Special thanks for the remarkable work on this project go to Maurizio 'Mizio' Bruzzone and Fabio 'Ruggine' Rossi.
Finally a swimming pool was created in a former manure pit. Repeating simple elements in travertine stone, quarried from the hills east of Siena, (formerly available at the neighboring Gracciano quarry and used throughout our restoration) round out the theme of materials and shapes used at Montecastelli.
As the use has evolved into the 21st century, we have endeavored to respect the past and preserve the 'magical beauty' of Montecastelli, merely polishing the facets of a precious stone abandoned in the rough of time. |
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