Castelnuovo dell’Abate: a medieval village

Castelnuovo dell’Abate is a small settlement located about 389 meters above sea level in the municipality of Montalcino, in the Val d’Orcia. This village retains its medieval aspect intact. The town dominates the famous abbey of Sant’Antimo from the top of a hill and is immersed in a beautiful countryside with hills covered with olive trees, vines and cypresses.

The medieval village also has some remains of walls erected by Siena in 1360. In the Middle Ages, Castelnuovo dell’Abate was in fact a small fortress that belonged to the abbot of the Sant’Antimo abbey. The abbot had a residence built inside the fortified village, which in 1462 with the suppression of the abbey became the occasional residence of the bishop of Montalcino.

Inside the small village, the Palazzo del Vescovo, built in the fifteenth century at the behest of Fabio Vecchi, bishop of Montalcino, and the Palazzo Bellanti, partly in drafts, of a late Renaissance layout with a brick facade, are worth a visit.

The parish church of medieval origin but restored in 1597 is dedicated to Saints Philip and James and still shows the original Romanesque structures. Inside there are some frescoes by Ventura Salimbeni from the end of the 16th century. The famous Brunello di Montalcino wine is produced in the hills surrounding the town.

In the surroundings of the town are to visit: the onyx quarry, the ancient bridge over the Starcia and the castle of Velona, a medieval fortress of the eleventh century, as well as obviously the stupendous Abbey of Sant’Antimo one of the masterpieces of the Val d’Orcia.