DISCOVERING ... MONTEFOLLONICO

You don’t just happen to find yourself in Montefollonico, you need to go there for a reason. This thought will come to mind when you come to the road that leads only to this tiny Medieval town located on a lonely hill top, far from more travelled roads.  And it is perhaps this splendid isolation that gives Montefollonico its beauty and charm.
Greater than that of other more famous, sometimes unjustly heralded destinations, on the panorama of Italy’s tourist trail. Montefollonico in sot one of those little museum towns which have been frozen for posterity, preserving a cold, impersonal and mummified status quo.
Montefollonico is alive and thriving, despite the beguiling background of rarefied calm, a constant feature of its history over the centuries.
The little town has developed within  the eleventh century terracotta walls, that same terracotta form which almost every house and building have been built. Its name is of known, distant origin, unlike the often unknown and to a certain extent mysterious naming of surrounding villages.

This was the place where people used to make cloth, and the ancient Romans had a name for the cloth workers : ”fullones”.
In fact, Monte a Fullonico is mentioned in one of the first known documents.
Its real development began around 1100, when this small yet strategic place came to be at the centre of an infinite number of struggles between the then very quarrelsome communes.
In some way, nearly everything form that time survives to this day.
The walls still survive, as do the three gates, Pianello, Triano and Follonica, the seven towers together with the imposing  Cassero tower and the Place di San Leonardo.
However, perhaps the longest surviving and most recognisable feature of the town is its atmosphere , the sound of silence and the pure, Siena-Chianina dialect of its inhabitants.
The little town has developed in such a way that the people are fully aware of their cultural heritage and very fond of their traditions.
Here, culture and tradition have the deep roots of a centuries-old vine or olive tree.