The Rocca aldobrandesca is a defensive castle located in the historic center of Capalbio. It was originally built in the Middle Ages as a possession of the Abbazia delle Tre Fontane of Rome. During the 1200s, it passed to the Aldobrandeschi family, who further fortified the structure. They held control intermittently until the end of the 1300s, when it passed to the Orsini of Pitigliano.
The presence of Capalbio and its fortress in the Orsini County was brief, ending with the conquest by the Sienese at the beginning of the 1400s. The Sienese performed renovation work that gave the architectural monument its current appearance. In the second half of the 1500s, following the fall of Siena, the site passed into the hands of the Medici and became part of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany.
The complex consists of a tower and a noble palace, known as Palazzo Collacchioni, built against one another. The tower is the original core, featuring a quadrangular section on a rusticated base and a battlemented crown. The palace, dating from the 1500s, stands on three levels and features a main portal leading to an internal courtyard with a well for a subterranean cistern.
Inside the palace, period furniture and a Conrad Graf grand piano are preserved. Giacomo Puccini played this piano while he frequently stayed at the nearby Torre della Tagliata. In 1989, the site was also used as a filming location for the movie C'era un castello con 40 cani with Peter Ustinov and Salvatore Cascio.
Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons
Written by Nicolo Ciampini
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