Albola Castle

Albola, or better Old Albola, rises in the territory of Radda in Chianti and it is caught up from the chief town following the indications that carry to us in the heart of the Valley of the Hung river.

The tower of the Keep.

In the Middle Age all of the 'Chianti' area was covered with numerous fortified settlements, fiefs of the many local Lords who were vassals to the Guidi and the Trebbiesi counts. Since 1201, with the peace of Fonterutoli, Florence recognized its dominion on the region and at the beginning of the 14th century this territory was organized in 'terzieri' or tripartate with a dominant city in each of the three areas and united in the newly formed 'Chianti League'. Albola, sited on a isolated hill close to the source of the river Pesa, was one of the most powerful castles of the Terziere or Tripartate commanded by the town of Radda in Chianti.

The castle today looks like a classic fortified mountain stronghold with a great part of its structures from the 13th/14th century. Albola is one of the castles of this type that maintains the traces of the external elliptical circuit walls, at the center of which we can admire the mighty and tall keep with another structure at a lower, both of medieval origin. The original gate of the keep opens at the second level (European first floor) from the ground, all the complex is constructed in stone and was recently the subject of restoration work. The army of Albola was allied with the Forentines against Emperor Charles IV in the mid-15th and the castle wervved as a main point of resistance to the Aragonese invasion of the 1478, before it became part of Tuscan lands dominated by the Grand Dukes of the Lorena family. Today it is private property and the center of an agricultural estate.