View of Montorsaio

The village of Montorsaio is a small jewel of defensive architecture: with its elongated shape it is the prototype of the hill village with its ancient houses arranged in concentric circles and perched to defend its proud cistern and the ancient Sienese keep which, although in ruins, still bears witness to its importance. The very tenacious forteto (name given in Maremma to the Mediterranean scrub) climbs up to the edge of the town.Here, mushrooms, chestnuts, game in abundance and panoramic points where you can enjoy a picture-postcard Maremma represent the main elements of a splendid nature. A fief of the Salimbeni and even before that of other noble families, Montorsaio was for centuries an outpost of the Sienese Republic: its legacy is a very refined Madonna with Child by Sano di Pietro preserved in a copy in the church of Santi Cerbone and Michele and, in the Oratory of the Crucifix, a wooden sculpture of the Virgin attributed to the school of Mariano d'Agnolo Romanelli. The ruins of the Convento della Nave are also mysterious, where legends about licentious friars and shameful killings make the atmosphere quite singular.