Photo © LigaDue

San Rocco a Pilli

A place frequented since the time of the Etruscans, developed in the Middle Ages and surrounded by the views of the Val di Merse

San Rocco a Pilli is a fraction of the municipality of Sovicille, not far from the city of Siena, surrounded by the countryside of the Val di Merse. The inhabited center has its roots in the Etruscan age, but the first evidence of local communities dates back to the Middle Ages, when the presence of three nuclei rose around the parishes of Santa Maria a Pilli, San Lorenzo a Pilli and San Salvatore a Pilli.

The place where the village developed was originally called Canonica a Pilli; the current name is probably due to the Confraternity of San Rocco, born in the second half of the 16th century and dissolved a little more than two centuries later at the behest of Leopold I, Grand Duke of Tuscany.

Church of San Bartolomeo, San Rocco a Pilli - Credit: LigaDue

San Rocco a Pilli comes to life along a main street and a series of secondary streets and alleys, and preserves some historic buildings such as the Church of San Salvatore and the Church of San Bartolomeo. The latter has medieval walls and a neoclassical facade, designed in the 19th century by the architect Agostino Fantastici, commissioned by the Counts of Elci. In the small square in front of it, a little wood and a war memorial remember the victims of the two world wars.

Near the inhabited center, on the road that from Siena leads toward Grosseto, there is Villa Cavaglioni, an ancient 14th-century fortress transformed into a residential villa in the 18th century by the Pannocchieschi d'Elci family, today partially used as a tourist facility.