A Tamanti castle sold, and sold again
Castello Romitorio, the medieval castle on the north-western ridge of Montalcino now owned by the family of the painter Sandro Chia, belonged to the Tamanti for most of the nineteenth century. In the 1820 cadastre the “Romitorio Villa” is the building now called Castello Romitorio; the winery cellar stands about 200 metres to the south.
The Tamanti years
The first clear record of the Tamanti at Romitorio is a building project. In 1808 Giacomo Tamanti, owner of the Castello di Romitorio, asked the bishop to move the little country church of San Guglielmo d’Aquitania, which stood “in luogo fondo e scosceso, umida e nociva al popolo”, in a low, steep, damp place that was bad for the people who came to it, to “il palazzo di Romitorio”. He offered to build a new church of the same size beside his house, to maintain the building and its furnishings, and to give the priest a stable for his horse and a fire to warm and dry himself. In exchange he asked for the old chapel and the ruined cottage beside it. The bishop accepted, on condition that the new chapel be built with the stones of the old one. By 1814 a priest had been appointed to serve “the new church of Romitorio”. The chapel that stands beside the castle today is the one Giacomo Tamanti built: Italy’s national heritage catalogue records it as the Cappella di Sant’Antonio da Padova, the chapel of the Fortezza di Romitorio, built about 1808 ‘su progetto di Giacomo Tamanti’, to his design (catalogue no. 0900384992). Brandi’s printed history of Sant’Angelo in Colle, Il Senso della Memoria (2010), confirms the story: the old Romitorio, a small church with a hermit’s cottage already in ruins, was pulled down in 1808, when Giacomo built the chapel of St Anthony of Padua beside the castle “for the convenience of the people of the place”, partly with its stones. The chapel was served for a long time and was abandoned only when priests and country people were gone.
In the 1820 cadastre the brothers Ermenegildo and Dr. Antonio Tamanti held parcels 1 to 92, nearly the whole section, with two chapels, houses and holm-oak woods. The tithe book of 1832 lists “Romitorio, ora Tamanti”, and in 1868 Ermenegildo published a notice dismissing its sharecroppers. A Montalcino account recorded by the writer Isabella Dusi in 2006 says that the castle had been “sold off in bankruptcy to the Tamanti family”, which fits a purchase shortly before 1808.
How it left the Tamanti
This is the clearest case of a sale. The estate says the castle was restored as a manor house in the nineteenth century, the Tamanti decades, and abandoned after the Second World War. By 1971, when the computerised land register begins, it belonged to a Montalcino family. It passed to a Dutch buyer in 1972 and then, from 1974, among companies based in Rome, one of them named simply “Romitorio srl” (1976–1980). This is the period in which, according to the estate, the castle belonged to Baron Giorgio Franchetti, the Roman art patron, whose name does not itself appear in the register. Sandro Chia’s purchase deed is dated 22 May 1989, although the estate dates his arrival to 1984; in 1999 he transferred the property to the estate company. Chia’s son Filippo runs the estate today: about 200 hectares, most of it woodland.
Timeline
- 1808 Giacomo Tamanti, owner of the Castello di Romitorio, obtains leave to replace the old church of San Guglielmo with a new chapel beside the castle.
- 1814 A priest is appointed to serve the new church of Romitorio.
- 1820 Ermenegildo and Dr. Antonio Tamanti, parcels 1–92.
- 1832 “Romitorio, ora Tamanti” in the tithe book.
- 1868 Ermenegildo dismisses the Romitorio sharecroppers.
- 1868–1971 Sold out of the family; by 1971 owned by a Montalcino family.
- 1972–1989 A Dutch buyer, then Rome companies including “Romitorio srl”: the years of Baron Giorgio Franchetti.
- 1989 Sandro Chia’s purchase deed (the estate dates his arrival to 1984); the estate company from 1999; the Chia family today.
What may survive
The buildings register records a private chapel on the castle parcel, listed separately as a chapel or oratory, as well as the villa itself: very probably Giacomo Tamanti’s chapel of 1808, one of the two chapels of 1820. The Tamanti probably carried out the nineteenth-century restoration, so their work may still be in the fabric of the castle: arms, inscriptions, fireplaces. Romitorio’s vines lie on the ridge around the castle.
More on this story: Romitorio in Tamanti Poderi.
Sources
Don Antonio Brandi, Studi e Trascrizioni; Don Antonio Brandi, Il Senso della Memoria. Ricerche sulla storia di Sant’Angelo in Colle (2010), p. 107; complete owner-table survey of the 1820 Catasto Generale della Toscana, Montalcino; Gazzetta Ufficiale, 22 September 1868; Castello Romitorio, “Origini”; estate profiles by Empson and 67 Pall Mall; Isabella Dusi, Bel Vino (2006); Regione Toscana and Agenzia delle Entrate map services; historical land-register extracts, Foglio 79, particella 8, and Foglio 78, particella 8.
This page is independent family-history research by Palazzo Tamanti, drawn from the Palazzo Tamanti storybook (October 2026). It is not written or endorsed by the winery. All Montalcino winery origin stories · Tamanti family history.