Il Castello di Celsa

Oral tradition attributes the foundation of the original settlement to Matilde di Canossa, Countess of Tuscany, in the 12th Century, when it was intended as a hunting lodge. However, the first documents attesting to its existence date back to the 13th century: Celsa was long a somber fortified structure that dominated the valley and the plain up to Siena, performing a territorial control function from that privileged position.

During the first half of the 16^th century, the noble Sienese scholar and academic Mino Celsi transformed the medieval fortress into a stately Renaissance villa. The restoration work is traditionally attributed to the famous architect Baldassarre Peruzzi, who was born nearby. Celsi requested modifications to “free the imprisoned house and allow it to be impregnated with sun and light”, as reported by Shepherd and Jellicoe (Italian Gardens of the Renaissance, E.Benn, 1925). The authors, who visited the property in the 1920s,  added that “the delicate magic of Peruzzi’s hand has touched the original walls, emphasising their strength through the lightness of the additions in a way that is a revelation in the art of transforming the formal into the informal”.

Peruzzi’s intervention would therefore involve the circular-plan chapel in front of the castle, the terracing support wall with niches, parallel to the access avenue, and the structure of the Italian garden in front of the main building.

The architectural genius of the project—which aligns with the Renaissance tradition of intervening on fortified buildings from the Middle Ages to adapt them to new functions—lies in its ability to absorb that ancient and austere fortified structure into a completely new spatial discourse.

As well represented by Cresti and Listri (Civiltà delle Ville Toscane, Magnus Edizioni, 1992), “…the sixteenth-century intervention, apparently limited to superficial cosmetic changes, managed to regularize the previous convergence towards the mountain of the two opposing buildings [the two symmetrical castle buildings that give it the trapezoidal shape], thus producing a suggestive and strong scenographic impression, and to combine the old complex and the new appendices in a unitary space that is decidedly more ‘modern’ and imposing”.

The successful transformation into a quiet, shady residence allowed Mino Celsi to invite the Archbishop of Siena, Francesco Bandini Piccolomini, to seek rest there, using these words:

“You, my coarse and uncultivated little song / Return to Celsa, and ensure, / That my quiet is not taken from you”.

However, in 1554, Celsa was devastated by the Austro-Spanish imperial troops of Charles V.

After the Celsi family, the property passed to the noble Sienese family De Vecchi in the early 1600s, who presumably restored it and built the Baroque Park, called “il Rocco”.

The De Vecchi family remained the owners until the mid-1800s when it was given as a dowry by Giulia De Vecchi for her marriage to the Marquis Amerigo Antinori.

At the end of the 19^th century, Maria Antinori, daughter of Giulia De Vecchi, married the Roman prince Giuseppe Aldobrandini, and in those years commissioned the architect Mariani for further changes in the Neo-Gothic style, typical of that era. This involved raising and crenellating the east tower and the entire building, opening lancet windows and scraping off plaster to expose the medieval stones.

Later, their son Clemente Aldobrandini and his wife, Luisa von Welczeck, a passionate and expert gardener, restored the original formal design of the park and the Italian garden (giardino all’italiana).