Bibbiano

The fortified settlement of Bibbiano, commanding from a hill the Ombrone Valley and the underlying town of Buonconvento, dates back to the year 850, as property of the Longobard count Guinigi di Reghinari at the time of emperor Ludovico II.

Two noble families from Siena, the Guiglieschi first and the Cacciaconti then, had held the castle since the mid-13th century. The square keep was raised in the middle of the fortification in the fourteenth century. The castle was later destroyed, but rebuild in the fifteenth century by the new owner, the Cardinal Raffaello Petrucci, following a project of the architect Baldassarre Peruzzi.

The castle of Bibbiano is made up of two structures, the keep and the double walled enclosure surrounded by the ditch, running on three of the four sides. On the west side of the walled curtain angles there were two crenelated leaning turrets endowed with machicolation, one is intact but the second has disapperared, only the supporting brackets in stone are still there. The unique gatehouse is finely framed with sandstone ashlars and protected by a great number of arrowslits and loopholes. The wall walk is still visible. The complex is, mainly for its still intact medieval aspect, one of most remarkable of the whole Sienese countryside.