Of course a fort like this, with this name, makes you imagine stories of witches and sorceries. Castiglion Bazetti, or Castiglion that God Sol Knows, as he is known by all, in the mists of time was the refuge of the older hags who welcomed adepts and new worshipers of Satan.

More: when the fires of San Giovanni were lit, on the night when the witches could not fly, on June 23, they, in that place, were not very silent and good but the so-called “sorceress” (the oldest and most powerful ) with a blood rite he branded the new daughters of the Evil One, transforming the young people, themselves into witches: renounce the Christian faith, the sacraments, trample on the cross, eat on fasting days and fast on Sundays. The brand was branded on the left hand. They wandered through the woods of the Va di Merse.

A legend that is still told today and still today it is said that lightning does not fall on the castle because the sorceress still protects it. So far the legend, in fact. But here is the story of this place, however, suggestive, particular, full of energy.

Mentioned for the first time in the Sienese Statutes in 1262, the name derives, as generally happens, from the aristocratic family that ruled over this territory. On the castle there are very few historical sources available, at the end of the thirteenth century it was under the Sienese jurisdiction, as evidenced by a document that the inhabitants of the castle for not having sent infantrymen to the service of the municipality.

A further act of 1271 certifies that Siena did not even send its own rector to the castle, recognizing in fact a certain political and jurisdictional autonomy to the local lords. Already at the time it must have been the Saracins, a powerful city family that in 1318 was the owner of the fortress and many surrounding territories as well as a mill not far away, located on the fortress. Both from these few information and from the typology of the original surviving walls it can be deduced that the construction of the territory of the castle took place in a relatively late period, in relation to the other fortifications of, it should be at the beginning of the 13th century.

The structure, today, is articulated around a central courtyard (used as a parade ground both for the preparation of the knights and for defense) from which a beautiful external stone staircase starts to access the upper floors where we find a large room, a large well-preserved fireplace and a kitchenette. The view from the tall windows is exciting: you can see the forest and nothing more. Isolated, lost, hidden.

Castle suitable for witches and magical rites. Or just hidden motorcycles for defense. Consisting of a large rectangular stone keep, with Romanesque arched windows, the structure has numerous posthumous openings of various shapes attributable to the residential / agricultural use to which it was converted before abandonment. A tower is at the southwest corner with an oven and a well inside. The buildings are joined by a curtain wall that delimits the courtyard, on the southern side there is the main access door with the round arch and the stone corbels of the apparatus. Along the eastern side of the ancient building we find the remains of a church and the remains of buildings that must have been the stables.

And the witches? They watched everything from the highest towers of Castiglion that God only knows.

Mauro Martelli

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