At Romitorio the Tamanti held almost an entire cadastral section. In the survey of about 1820, the owner table for section T′ attributes parcels 1 to 92, nearly every numbered parcel in it, to the brothers Ermenegildo and Antonio Tamanti di Filandro. The entries include two chapels, several houses and extensive holm-oak woods.
The 1820 record
The pages for this section are in Tomo III of the Tavole indicative (p. 90, p. 91, p. 92, p. 93, p. 94, p. 95, p. 96). No reliable hectare total has been calculated for the block yet. Even without one, the holding was among the brothers’ largest, alongside Il Casato and Pelagrilli.
“Ora Tamanti”: a recent acquisition?
Two other records suggest how the land came to the family. The 1832 tithe register of the parish of SS. Salvatore lists “Romitorio” under “La Pergola Bargagli ora Tamanti”, meaning formerly Bargagli, now Tamanti. Don Antonio Brandi’s transcriptions also include material from 1808 about a Giacomo Tamanti described as owner of the Castello di Romitorio (Brandi, Studi e Trascrizioni). Brandi’s notes describe what Giacomo did there. In 1808 he asked the bishop to move the old church of San Guglielmo d’Aquitania, which stood in a low, steep and damp spot, “al palazzo di Romitorio”. He undertook to build a new church of the same size, to maintain it and its furnishings, and to give the priest a stable and a fire. In return he asked for the old chapel and the ruined cottage beside it. The bishop agreed, on condition that the new chapel be built with the materials of the old one, and by 1814 a priest was serving “the new church of Romitorio”. Brandi identifies it as the chapel that still stands beside the Castello di Romitorio, and Italy’s national heritage catalogue confirms it: the Cappella di Sant’Antonio da Padova, built about 1808 ‘su progetto di Giacomo Tamanti’ (catalogue no. 0900384992). Giacomo was probably Giacomo Tamanti (1742–1819), Filandro’s unmarried brother. How his holding passed to his nephews Ermenegildo and Antonio by 1820, and how it relates to the 1832 entry, is still to be worked out.
Romitorio today
The locality is now home to the Castello Romitorio winery, which dates the artist Sandro Chia’s purchase to 1984 (Castello Romitorio, “Origins”). Laid over today’s aerial photograph, the “Romitorio Villa” of the 1820 sheet is the building now called Castello Romitorio, so the Tamanti did own the castle itself. The full story, from Giacomo Tamanti’s chapel to Sandro Chia, is told in the Castello Romitorio Montalcino Origin Story.
Sources on this page
- Catasto Generale della Toscana, Montalcino, Tavole indicative, Romitorio (section T′), Tomo III pp. 90–96 (CASTORE; linked above)
- Don Antonio Brandi, Studi e Trascrizioni (1808 Romitorio material; 1832 SS. Salvatore decimario)
- Castello Romitorio, “Origins“
- Brian Pasch, survey of the Montalcino owner tables and Tamanti–Santi sources table (September 2026)