An atypical Moorish-style castle in Italy is strikingly beautiful. And all the more surprising is that few people know about it even among the Italians themselves. It’s hard to get into Sammezzano’s castle, but the impressions gained will be worth all the effort
Castello di Sammezzano is located on the outskirts of the Italian town of Leccio, 30 km from Florence. Erected in 780, over the centuries of its existence, the castle belonged to the king of France and Longobardia and the Holy Roman Emperor Carlo Magno, the Florentine family of Gualtierotti, the Medici, and also one of the richest families of Italy of his time, Ximenes d'Aragon (Ximenes d'Aragona) and, finally, to the Panciatichi family. After the war, a luxury hotel was opened in the castle, and in 1999 it was sold at an auction by an English organization. Now nobody lives in Sammezzano, silence and desolation reign in its premises.
Story
According to historical reports, in 780, Carlo Magno himself visited the castle with his wife, son, and king Umberto I. Many centuries later, the building passed into the possession of the Florentine family of Gualtierotti until 1488. After some time, the castle was acquired by Giovanni Medici.
In 1564, the Grand Duke Cosimo I of Medici created the so-called Summerzano Nature Reserve: a vast area that includes a large part of the modern territory of the Regello commune, which was forbidden to fish and hunt without special permission.
In 1605, the Zimmerz d'Aragona family bought the Summerzano castle, and in 1816 he inherited Panchiatics. Today’s appearance of the castle is due to Ferdinando Panciatics Ximenes d'Aragona (Ferdinando Panciatichi Ximenes d'Aragona). Having become both a customer and an architect, in 1853 he rebuilt the Summerzano citadel in the Moorish style. Now its facade resembles the famous Taj Mahal, and interiors with an abundance of decorative stucco work date back to the image of the Alhambra castle in Granada. By the way, the guard house, located in the park of Summerrzano, was also designed by Panchiatics and designed in the style of a castle.
Halls
Inside the castle there are 365 rooms, according to the number of days in a year. There is the White Hall, the Hall of Peacocks, Lily, Stalactites, Spanish shells, the Hall of Lovers.
In the interweaving of large and small rooms, many niches, secret corners and unexpectedly spacious galleries have been lost. Windows, columns, labyrinths of corridors ... capitals, arches, arches and domes - the head goes round. Each room is special, not one is similar to the other and each tends to stand out with originality and sophistication.
A park
But miracles are not limited to the interior of the castle. Summerzano Castle is surrounded by a park, considered one of the most extensive and beautiful in Tuscany. All the same Panchiatics planted many exotic and rare plants here. True, to this day, unfortunately, not all have survived.
But the park’s special pride is the giant sequoias more than thirty-five meters high, one of them has a trunk with a diameter of about ten meters.
Panchiatics decorated the park with compositions in the Moorish style. An elegant bridge, a cave with a statue of Venus, filled with water, vases, fountains ... Some of the statues were subsequently transported to Florence in the Ximenes Palace. Today, the park is the only place freely accessible for visiting in Sammezzano.
Hotel and sale
After the war, the castle was rebuilt as a luxury hotel and restaurant. After some time, a small bar opened near its outer wall - a popular Sunday meeting place for locals who love dinner with a view of the castle. However, in 1990 the hotel closed, with it a bar, and in 1999 an English company acquired the castle. Since then, the castle of Sammezzano until 2012 was generally closed to the public and abandoned. Its external walls and some internal premises suffered from acts of vandalism.
Visit
In April 2012, a group of volunteers organized a committee Comitato FPXA 1813-2013 in honor of the bicentenary of the birth of Ferdinado Panciatika Ximenes d'Aragona, who was born in Florence on March 10, 1813 and died in the castle of Sammezzano on October 18, 1987.
The committee is based on a non-profit basis and is not the owner of the castle, only cooperates with its owners with the aim of organizing periodic tourist excursions. Volunteers still have not been able to make excursions regular and numerous, therefore, whenever they manage to agree with the owners to visit the castle, they post this news on their website.
Therefore, those who wish to stroll through the amazing halls of Sammezzano Castle should first register on the committee website. And often this is not easy: it happens that a group of 250 people is recruited literally a few minutes after opening a new recording form. But such a hot fight is worth personally admiring the only castle in Italy in such an unusual style. By the way, the last organized tour took place on May 4 (5 groups of 50 people were created), and the next is expected in June, but the exact date is still unknown. Follow the news of the committee website 😉
- Committee website: www.sammezzano.org/prossimo-evento.html
- Facebook page: www.facebook.com/SammezzanoComitatoFpxa18132013
- How to get there: www.sammezzano.org/contatti.html
