Fortezza di Montalcino site features

The fortress stands at the southern end of Montalcino, at the top of the town, and the first thing to notice is its shape: not the square box a 14th-century castle normally is, but an irregular pentagon, with a tower at each of its five angles.

You enter by a ramp that climbs to the fortress door, with the north-west tower standing beside it. The ramp is the only way in, which is the point of it.

Put your hand on the wall before going further. The base is a scarp — a pronounced outward slope — and along it, at the foot of the walls and towers, are numerous loopholes. Look up, and along the wall-walk above you there are many machicolations: openings in the floor of the parapet. Stones dropped through them gathered speed, struck the sloping scarp, and changed direction into a horizontal path, scything along the foot of the wall through anyone standing against it. The slope is not decoration and not drainage; it is a deflector.

Going round clockwise from the entrance: the Porta beside the north-west tower; the chapel, built against the walls on the north side; the north-east tower; the east tower; the south-east tower with the mastio di San Martino beside it; the mastio itself — also called the cassero — in the south, from which you reach the wall-walk that runs the entire perimeter; and the torrione di San Giovanni to the west.

Outside the walls to the south-west, joined to the fortress by a single door, is the bastione di San Giovanni. It is the newest part, put up after the surrender of 1559, and today it carries a small park planted as a garden of holm oaks — lecci — the tree that probably gave Montalcino its name.

• The pentagonal plan (1361–1368) — a structure unprecedented for its date, with a tower at each of the five angles, against the square plan of earlier fortifications.
• The scarped wall and its machicolations — stones dropped from the wall-walk struck the sloping base and turned horizontal, scything along the foot of the wall. The clearest piece of readable military engineering in this batch.
• The loopholes — numerous, at the base of the scarp wall and the towers.
• The ramp and the Porta — the single entrance, climbing to the door beside the north-west tower.
• The mastio di San Martino — in the south, and a 13th-century structure the fortress was built around rather than a 14th-century addition; the wall-walk round the whole perimeter is reached from it.
• The torrione di San Giovanni — to the west, and likewise pre-existing fabric incorporated into the fortress.
• The left nave of the basilica of San Egidio — the ancient church that stood here was partly swallowed by the walls, and that one nave survives inside them.
• The chapel — built against the walls on the north side.
• The bastione di San Giovanni — outside the walls to the south-west, joined by a door, built after the surrender of 31 July 1559, and now a small park of holm oaks, the tree that probably named the town.