The Val D’Orcia is one of the most famous valleys in the world even though the name itself may not mean much. Tourists have travelled the Roman road called the via Cassia since the 16th century on the Grand Tour, but before them it was trod by pilgrims on their way to Rome and before that the Roman Legions. In fact scenes from The Gladiator were filmed here.

The Grand Tour

The Medici family constructed Post Houses along the road to welcome the Grand Tourists on their travels. We visited the Osteria Grande in Radicofani and photographed its abandoned interior in 2017. Personally I love photographing uninhabited ghostly buildings. Constructed in 1584 , it has welcomed through its doors almost every celebrity to have ever visited Rome before the age of rail. Mozart was here with his father Leopold, Charles Dickens complimented the spacious, carpeted quarters with its open fire. The Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph II, Stendhal, Chateaubriand and many more stopped over.

Medici Post House portico, Radicofani  with rings for tethering horses. Known as Osteria Grossa, the Great Hostelry. The coach house door is at the far end.

The Medici Portico, fountain and horse trough from 1603. The Six Balls are the Medici Arms. This was sketched by William Turner in 1828 when he stayed here.

The Medici Hostelry from the road

The Chilly Interior

Medici Hostelry Entrance Hall scaled by scores of celebrated artists, writers, musicians and dandies.

Kitchen and Dining hall

Radicofani stands at 800m and it was notoriously cold in the travelling season of Spring and Autumn. This was the only fireplace other than the Popes’ quarters so very often  ‘milord’ would sleep in front of this fire with his servants rather than in the door-less, unheated rooms upstairs.  An alternative was to sleep in the basement in his coach warmed by the horses.

The Basement was warmer

stables in basement of Medici Hostelry

The Loggia affords a  fine view up to Radicofani town with its castle above.

stairs leading to sleeping quarters

Popes had it better

The Popes’ apartment had a fireplace with a chariot race fresco above, and even doors. Did the Medici ever let it to lesser mortals?  After all, only two popes ever stayed here, Pius VI  and Pius VII (no relation). Pius VI is one of the real people who features in De Sade‘s  1797 novel ‘Juliette, or Vice Amply Rewarded‘. His audience with Juliette ends in an orgy involving the pope himself.  The Marquis  also stayed here, could they possibly have met? Napoleon, though notoriously anticlerical himself, imprisoned De Sade for the depravities of the novel for the rest of his life.  Casanova  was also a guest.  And was this the fireplace Dickens described?

Popes had ‘mod cons’,  even a bathtub

Pope Pius VII passed a night 3rd November 1809 suffering from a light fever on his way as a French prisoner to crown Napoleon in Paris.

The art critic Brian Sewell made an entertaining documentary ‘Brian Sewell’s Grand Tour’ in which he reads from entertaining actual accounts of the ‘milords’ who stayed here. We forget how tough travelling was before the railway age,  even for the wealthy. Later he also visits Orvieto where he makes some amusing comments within the cathedral. Highly recommended, unless you find his voice too much – somebody said, ‘He even makes the Queen sound common.’

Read Part One – Grand Tour: Radicofani on the Cassia – here

The post Radicofani and the Grand Tour – Part 2 appeared first on Camera Etrusca Photography Holidays & Workshops in Italy.

The Val d’Orcia,  famous and  beloved site of modern photographers and artists in Tuscany,  to the traveller of yore it was just a desolate region to be got through.

For nigh on a thousand years Rome had been the goal of pilgrims following the ancient Via Cassia known in the Middle Ages as the Via Francigena, the road of the Franks.

Val d’Orcia from the ancient Via Cassia, road to Rome

From the mid 17thC until the railway age mainly British and Prussian aristocrats followed the same route on the Grand Tour, a heady mix of culture, adventure and sex that could last months if not years.

The abandoned Medici Post House -horse trough on the left

To this end coaching inns or post-houses were built every 20km or so. The only more or less intact surviving example is the Medici Post House atop a hill south of Sienna on what were the borders of the Papal States at Radicofani.

The dilapidated,melancholic but beautiful facade

The Val d’Orcia may be beloved of modern photographers and artists with its windswept clay hills each one apparently topped by a picturesque farmhouse with a row of cypresses, but to the traveller of yore it was just a desolate region to be got through.

Radicofani in the badlands south of Sienna, a staging post on the Grand Tour

“Such is the region before arriving at Monte Radicofani, a terrible black hill on whose peak we had to lodge for the night. The ascent was extremely arduous and difficult…”  Thomas Gray who accompanied  Horace Walpole through Italy in 1740.

Horse trough with Medici arms: 6 balls like those of the pawnbroker represent banking.

Travellers diaries are full of lurid descriptions of the avidity, deviousness,  unscrupulousness and possibly worst of all for men of their station, impertinence of the ostlers and postilions. What is more they were all armed with long knives and more than ready to use them.

Here is a page from William Turner’s sketchbook of Radicofani with the fountain in the foreground, the town and castle in the background. He appears to have been sitting on the first floor loggia. Sadly the town received a battering in World War II seeing as it was atop a hill from which the entire valley could be surveyed.

The Medici fountain by William Turner 1828.

The Tate Gallery has wrongly described the sketch above as a view of Orvieto. He was in fact on his way to Orvieto where he was to paint one of his most celebrated Italian landscapes.

horse hitching ring

The castle topped hill can be seen from far off in every direction and though it may seem romantic to us, in the past it must have had a dark and sinister air. Apart from anything else this was bandit country and at the very least they were likely to be fleeced by the locals.

Entrance to the stables

The ‘milord’ may have had practically unlimited funds, but travel was tough even for him in those days. A night in a place like the Posta Medicea would have been by our standards uncivilised. It stands at a breezy (in summer) 800m  (2500ft), the rest of the year it was windswept and freezing.

cellar and stables

Rooms had no doors, the windows no glass, bedding was infested with parasites, rooms perishingly cold, the food despicable – all so unpleasant in fact that ‘milord ‘ often preferred to spend the night with his own blankets in his carriage with his horse in the cellars. There is no reason to suppose that other post houses were very different, they varied only in their elevation.

When we went there in 2013 on a Camera Etrusca tour round the Val d’Orcia we found the cellars easy enough to get into, but sadly the rest of the building upstairs is securely locked.

Camera Etrusca photo tours and workshop  has always a day dedicated to see the Val d’Orcia and the area around Sienna. We normally start on Fridays. A small group will be guided by Patrick Nicholas to discover hidden treasure to photograph. Read more on Typical one week photo workshop holiday in Tuscany and Umbria – Italy or contact us to book a custom tour or more info.

The post Grand Tour: Radicofani on the Cassia. appeared first on Camera Etrusca Photography Holidays & Workshops in Italy.