Website and content by ViaDelCastello Monterongriffoli. Images and text may not be used without permission
Views from the Upper Village
Views from the Upper Village
Click on any image for captions ("i") and access to full screen option
"La presenza nella zona di quattro delle dodici più importanti piante esemplari rinvenute in tutto il territorio comunale... e la diffusione dei filari di cipresso (qui si riscontra il più bel sentiero a doppio filare del territorio comunale), fanno di questo Ambito uno dei più belli e valorizzabili dell’intera Provincia anche grazie ad un tipo di agricoltura estensiva che ancora ne caratterizza il paesaggio messa però in pericolo dal sopraggiungere degli impianti intensivi di vigneti." ["The presence in this area of four of the 12 most important specimens of trees to be found in the whole of the municipality... and the prevalence of rows of cypresses (the finest track lined with a double row of cypresses in the whole of the municipality is to be found here) make this one of the most beautiful and highly prized locations in the entire Province, added to which is the extensive-type farming that still characterizes the landscape, although the latter is now threatened by the approach of intensive plantings of vineyards."]
​
From a description of Monterongriffoli in a planning document relating to the former municipality of San Giovanni d'Asso, issued in 2019 by the municipality of Montalcino into which San Giovanni d'Asso was absorbed in a 2017 territorial merger. [Comune di Montalcino, Piano Strutturale del Estinto Comune di San Giovanni d'Asso, Variante 3, Febbraio 2019]
A dominant vantage point
​
Once the heart of the borgo, the castle, church and medieval dwellings of the upper village of Monterongriffoli have all but disappeared, leaving behind them a small agglomeration of rustic buildings on ancient foundations.
But despite the vanishing buildings, what survives is the dominant position of the upper village, from the vantage point of which there opens up a commanding view over the lower village's rooftops and towards the countryside beyond - wooded valleys, dramatic cliff-faces overhung by trees, olive groves, graceful hills punctuated by distant farmhouses, and the hilltown of Montalcino on the horizon to the southwest. And above all a profusion of cypresses striding down the valley and scaling the slopes of the nearby hill, Monte Vecchio.
The two buildings closest to the western part of the old upper village of Monterongriffoli are the villa, shaded at the far end by its venerable umbrella pine, and the line of old farm estate buildings (the "Fattoria") in the village street below.
"Ambrogia di Tobia fu sposata a Ser Francesco de' Griffoli da Catignano, famiglia nobilissima, e delle grandi di Siena, ultimamente a' giorni nostri estinta nella nobil Donna Caterina Griffoli... La famiglia Griffoli diè in antico il nome ad un buon Castello posto nelle Crete di Siena, detto Monteron Griffoli, e per innanzi Monteroni d'Asso." ["Ambrogia, the daughter of Tobia, was married to Ser Francesco de' Griffoli da Catignano, who was from a family of the highest nobility, one of the great families of Siena, which in our time has become extinct with the passing of the noble Donna Caterina Griffoli... In days of old, the Griffoli family gave its name to a fine castle located in the Sienese Crete called Monteron Griffoli, previously known as Monteroni d'Asso."]
​
Gherardo Bartolini Salimbeni and Ildefonso di S. Luigi, Del Magnifico Lorenzo de' Medici. Florence: 1786
​
"Il cassero di Monteron-Grifoli riposa sopra una specie di zoccolo coperto di tufo alquanto sollevato dalla cresta della sottostante collina marnosa." ["The fortified part of the castle of Monteron-Grifoli rests on a type of tufo plinth somewhat raised above the crest of the marl hill below."]
Emanuele Repetti, Dizionario Geografico Fisico Storico Della Toscana, vol 3. Florence: 1839