24 October 2010

The original installation of Geggiano Villa dates back to 1530. Around 1768, in the occasion of the wedding of Anton Domenico Bianchi Bandinelli with Cecilia Chigi, Malavolti widow, the building was completely transformed in a grand villa with a garden surrounded by a wall and with a greenery theatre. Vittorio Alfi eri, who stayed for short periods at the villa, acted some of his tragedies just in the greenery theatre. In its splendour times the villa has been frequented by Montale, Saba, Guttuso and Stendhal. Recently the villa gave hospitality to the set of the movie "Stealing beauty".

The villa of Catignano was built supposedly due to the initiative of Lodovico Sergardi, noted humanitarian known also by the pseudonym Quinti Settano (1660 - 1726). The villa has a rectangular layout, which develops, on three continuous levels, with a small extension that suggests an L shape. With regards to the interior, note the entrance hall on the ground fl oor, characterised by three stone columns that support an entablature with the coat of arms of the Sergardi family. On the first fl oor are rooms with painted architectural features, decorated attics and beam supports in wood and plaster. The Italian style garden, accessed by two fl ights of steps, is divided into three sections: the first is characterized by a series of ornate fl owerbeds and spherical box hedges, the second is made up of a vegetable garden and apple orchard and the third presents a maze formed by box hedges. The chapel of Santa Croce is dated 1697. Rich decorative props characterize the internal walls. On the far wall and altar is the sculptured representation of the story of the True Cross.

The first mention of the locality of Selvole is in 1070 but the fi rst explicit signs of the presence of a castle go back to 1127 and 1158. It was the main site for a local noble family, the Lambardi, whose representatives became part of the dominant class in the Siena Council in the first half of the twelfth century. In 1230, it was assailed and destroyed by the Florentine's and in 1262 the council established that the taxes paid by the men in that community should be used to reconstruct the castle. In the following ten years it seems that the frustrating role of settlement was always less effective because in the Table of the Possessions of 1317-18, the castle is listed in the possessions of the Malavolti family, as an open village. It belonged to the same family, the Malavolti up until the 1960's. The church San Martino is praised by the mayor of Poggibonsi in 1203. The religious patronage of the Malavolti family is documented up until the fourteenth century. For a certain period, it was united to that of Cerreto, successively returned under the parish church Asciata. The interior, completely plastered, presents some tombstones of the Malavolti family. The far wall is painted with a fresco's that present a scene of the life of Saint Martino, dated 1891.