A hamlet formed by many families 6 Novembre 2010 – Posted in: Archivio

The hamlet of Fonterutoli and its castle narrated by Agnese Mazzei, architect, who was born here.
Fifth-born child of Marchese Lapo and descendant of a Florentine family that, despite its business, institutional and cultural activities in Florence and in the rest of Italy, retains strong ties to this hamlet, which represents a point of reference, an identity, a dimension of the soul. A small village built in a nerve centre of historical Chianti, where first lived the Etruscan and then the Romans, and where in the Middle Ages Siena and Florence, the two rival cities that wanted to rule these territories, fought for centuries.

A journey though the present and the future of Castello di Fonterutoli with Agnese Mazzei.

We walk with her through the cobbled streets facing rural estates with refined outlines, enriched by the stylistic elements of Tuscan buildings in the sixteenth and seventeenth century (although the village shows visible signs of its medieval origins). Such elements may refine a door or add details to a simple window, according to a natural care for beauty distinguishing even the simple people.
The villa of the Mazzei family, dating back to the sixteenth century, also shows the same rough elegance, and seems to anchor the winding streets of the hamlet. The villa is nearby the Church of San Miniato, where the people of the village still gather, the same people who meet on a bench in the summer afternoons to chat and who preserve the economic life of the two local shops.
We see a joyful red face appearing from a cheerful group of children playing hide-and-seek, while the noise of some cars along the via Chiantigiana brings us back to present. And the whinny of a horse, two young yankees stopping by to rest before departing again for their long mountain bike journey along the winding road of the provincial roads.