Modern Times
Though it had lost importance from a military and defensive viewpoint, the Ripa d’Orcia Castle continued over the centuries to play a leading role as centre of production and administration for the vast properties belonging to it. A great many productive and economic activities were carried out in the village, to the benefit of the owning family, the inhabitants and the sharecroppers who lived in the surrounding countryside.
Agrarian reform after the second world war, with the subsequent disappearance of sharecropping, changed the old social and productive set-ups. Consequent partitioning of the estate led to abandonment of the village and, to a large extent, the land. The castle’s centuries-old structures lost their function as never before or since: abandonment and neglect might have irremediably ruined this ancient testimony of an age long dead had it not been for the tenacity and passion of Countess Pierina Piccolomini Aluffi Pentini’s descendants who decided to revitalize the estate’s architectural and productive value.
The architectonic complex was transformed – with faithful and scrupulous preservation and restoration interventions – into a residential complex open to anyone wishing to enjoy the Province of Siena’s artistic and natural beauties. The farm, having suffered the epoch-making revolution of the end of sharecropping, was rehabilitated in harmony with the natural inclinations of the land and the traditions handed down to us, supplemented by technological innovation. All with view to the pursuit of excellence in Ripa d’Orcia produce.
Agrarian reform after the second world war, with the subsequent disappearance of sharecropping, changed the old social and productive set-ups. Consequent partitioning of the estate led to abandonment of the village and, to a large extent, the land. The castle’s centuries-old structures lost their function as never before or since: abandonment and neglect might have irremediably ruined this ancient testimony of an age long dead had it not been for the tenacity and passion of Countess Pierina Piccolomini Aluffi Pentini’s descendants who decided to revitalize the estate’s architectural and productive value.
The architectonic complex was transformed – with faithful and scrupulous preservation and restoration interventions – into a residential complex open to anyone wishing to enjoy the Province of Siena’s artistic and natural beauties. The farm, having suffered the epoch-making revolution of the end of sharecropping, was rehabilitated in harmony with the natural inclinations of the land and the traditions handed down to us, supplemented by technological innovation. All with view to the pursuit of excellence in Ripa d’Orcia produce.