Campagnatico: a Tuscan hill town remembered by Dante

Perched on a steep ridge above the Ombrone valley in the Maremma, Campagnatico has watched over this corner of the province of Grosseto for a thousand years. The town earned a place in literary history when Dante, in the eleventh canto of his Purgatorio, recalled Omberto Aldobrandeschi, the lord of Campagnatico, who was murdered here in 1259.

An Aldobrandeschi stronghold

First a possession of the abbey of San Salvatore on Monte Amiata, the town passed by 973 to the powerful Aldobrandeschi counts of Sovana, who fortified it with a keep, towers and walls to guard the road to the coastal salt pans and to hold off the ambitions of Siena. After Omberto's killing the castle fell to Siena, then to the Tolomei family, and finally into the Sienese state and the Grand Duchy of Tuscany.

Frescoes and stone

The ruined castle, with houses arranged in concentric rings around it, still crowns the hill. In the church of San Giovanni Battista a cycle of 14th-century frescoes of the Sienese school rewards a visit, while the former church of Sant'Antonio Abate, once run by the Templars, keeps its Romanesque facade. The reclamation of the Maremma marshes under the grand dukes in the 18th century restored prosperity to a land of wine, oil and truffles.

Where it is

Campagnatico stands about twenty kilometres north-east of Grosseto and roughly a hundred kilometres south of Florence, a quiet base for the hills between Monte Amiata and the sea.