Castello di Sammezzano

This place has monitored cameras, and an interior motion sensing alarm.

The history of the origins of Sammezzano Castle date as far back as 780, when the Charlemagne seems to have built part of this building as a hunting lodge for his wife and his son. At that time it looked much different, and I believe it was smaller as well. Many centuries after, the building was taken over by the Florentine family Gualtierotti who sold it or forfieted the property in 1488. For sometime between 1488 and 1564, it became the property of Bindo Altoviti and Giovanni de ‘Medici.

• Bindo Altoviti was an Italian banker and one of the most influential papal bankers of his generation. He was close extremely close friends with Benvenuto Cellini, Raphael, Michelangelo and Giorgio Vasari. It is likely that Bindo had many of these historical artists to the Sammenzzano during that period.

In 1564, ten years before his death, the Grand Duke Cosimo I created the restricted Sammezzano, a vast area that largely corresponds to the territory of the municipality of Reggello. Here it was a private hunting and fishing area, where if you were caught on the private land hunting or fishing without permission, you were killed. He did this to protect an area of tranquility where his family could stay. Cosimo I then gave it to his son Ferdinand, the future Grand Duke of Tuscany. Cosimo I died in 1574 to an undescribed illness, he had a total of 15 children in his lifetime.

In 1605 Sammezzano Castle was purchased with funds from the Spanish nobility to Ximenes of Aragon in 1816 and inherited by Panciatichi Ferdinando Ximenes d’ Aragon between 1853 and 1889 who gave the actual Moorish style, working as a designer and architect. During this time period d’ Aragon slept in a different room each night of the year, accomadating to the 365 different rooms that this building offers. Also during this time period the entire park was landscaped, he planted a large number of species of exotic trees and added Moorish architectural elements, such as a bridge (which we parked our rental fiat panda underneath), an artificial cave with a statue of Venus, some pools, fountains and other decorative terracotta creations. Only a small portion of the trees survived the nineteenth century, but there is a restoration project to preserve rare trees. The park is home to the largest group of giant sequoias in Italy, with 57 specimens measuring over 35 meters.

There is a gap in history between 1889 and 1945. However this building and property lies 19km south of the German defense line in August, 1944. Between August and December, allied forces advanced through to the Gothic Line, where according to a WW2 map, the British 81nd division approached the german defence line via the road runs along the west side of the property before converging with the British IBr divsion to push through the German defense.

After World War II, the castle Sammezzano was bought and used as a luxury hotel with apartments, spa, golf course and country club. The first democratic government of Italy, also known as the centrist government stayed here and brought international guests along with them. Through the 80s the hotels popularity died down significantly though tourism was becoming much more popular in Italy. The hotel could not afford the exorbitant prices to maintain a building like this and it was extremely outdated. At that time all power cables were external, meaning they ran along the floor or out windows to connect with a power tower. The building also had very limited running water. In 1990 they closed the hotel and the building was abandoned, and in desperate need of restoration. In 1999 a British company purchased the building. They restored some parts of the interior and fixed the clock that is ontop of the building, but it was still closed to the public with no electricity or water. This is when the first “urbex” pictures began to pop up online, as it has stayed abandoned to this day.

Not all hope was lost though, as in April of 2012 a committee was formed to promote and improve the Sammenzzano. It’s called the FPXA 1813-2013, which stands for Ferdinand Panciatichi Ximenes d’ Aragon, who is the one credited with making thie building and property so unbelievably beautiful. Their goal was to restore the building to how it was 200 years before and host a large event the year after. They failed to get funding for it.

The castle is was purchased in 2013 and was owned by Palmerston Hotels & Resorts, who planned to develop the property into a “luxurious sporting resort, incorporating a boutique hotel, apartments, spa and country club with golf, tennis and various sporting amenities”. They had obtained all necessary planning approvals and redevelopment finally began in 2015. This “redevelopment” included fixing the gravel driveway, adding a fence to prevent anyone from driving over the bridge, and mowing the grass every so often. Around this time, Thierry Mugler used the Great White Rotunda and Peacock Room in the castle to film an advert for his ‘Alien’ perfume.

It was clear that this building needed to be saved and the current owner wasn’t doing much about it, so a second committie was formed. Movimento Save Sammezzano was a group dedicated to finding an owner who would restore and honor the castle. They were successful, because in 2018 a Dubai-based company placed an offer of $18.1 million on the third auction and became the current owner. They bought the buildings on the land because they “appreciated the architecture and uniqueness,” but the surrounding land was still a public, historical park.

They too left the building abandoned, and urban exploring really started to pick up. Throughout COVID this building became extremely popular, and photos of it began to pop up online. The Dubai-based company saw these photos and in late Febuary, 2023, they installed a fence, cameras, and a motion-alarm system in the main building.

I visited this place on March 12th, 2023 with my parents. They were extremely interested in the building, but also not interested in explaining what we were doing to police whose language we didn’t speak. This meant that no entry was attempted through the fence, though it’s clear that most of the possible POEs the back and sides have been completely blocked off. The field out infront is used by teenagers as a place to smoke and hangout, which I found wasn’t much different to Linseed Oil back home.