GHINO DI TACCO

Born at the Fratta di Torrita in the second half of 1200, son of Tacco Monaceschi dei Pecorai, Ghino became a brigand, as did many other nobles of his time, through hatred of the Sienese who had occupied hi feud and in alliance with the rebel ghibellini, who had taken Trequanda, Asciano and part of the Val di Chiana.
The chronicles of the time describe him as a pitiless scoundrel capable even so of noble actions.
Known as ‘il falco della Val d’Orcia’ Ghino collected a long series of sentences for the countinuous robberies carried out by his band along the Francigena Way, for the kidnapping of the Contessa  Margherita di Campiglia and for his attempts to take Serre and Scrofiano.
But the episode that made him most famous was the murder of Judge Binincasa di Laterina, who had condemned to death one of his brothers and his uncle.
Ghino traced him to Rome and, in the very courtroom, decapitated him, impaled the head on his lance and rode home to his dark and imposing castle of Radicofani, where for months he hung the macabre trophy form the highest tower.
The kidnapping of the Abbot of Cluny and his release without ransom, won Ghino recognition form Pope Bonifacio VIII who received him in Rome, named him knight in the papal army and became his protector.


  

On the death of the Pope he returned to the Val di Chiana, where the memory of his deeds and hate towards him were still vivid and be was assassinated in an ambush near  Sinalunga.
A mixture of noble and villain, of savagery and chivalry, Ghino di Tacco is celebrated by Dante in the 6th canticle of the Purgatorio (Purg. VI 13,14).
Boccaccio, even though defining him ‘rubatore di strade’ (highwayman) was so fascinated by him that he dedicated, in the Decameron, the second novella of the tenth day to him.
Partly history, partly legend, his deeds have through the years been subject of many popular plays and the studies of historians.

 

FRA' JACOPO TORRITI

Franciscan monk, restorer of mosaics, architect and painter, Brother Jacopo is undoubtedly the must illustrious and celebrated personage of Torrita di Siena.



  

 

He’s believed to have been born in Torrita, though there is no concrete proof of this.
The ‘Encyclopedia of Christianity’, published in 1947, claims that:
“Jacopo of Torrita took his name from his birthplace.”
The street that leads to the “Chiesa Collegiata” (Collegiate Church) in the heart of the Old Center bears Brother Jacopo’s name.
A medallion portrait of him in the Meeting Room of the Town Hall depicts him as a particularly jovial monk.
He is remembered for his late 13th century works, particularly the restoration of the Marian Mosaics in the apse of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.
Further testaments to his artistry include painted tondi in the second cross vault of the Basilica Superiore of Assisi.
 

 

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