The castle of Strozzavolpe (Siena) and its many mysteries

An infernal fox that wanders around in the full moon nights. An hidden treasure in an ancient castle. A crowd of restless ghosts. A labyrinth of secret passages that runs through the subsoil. Horrible bloody deeds. All kind of horror, a list that would be the the joy of every writer of gothic stories, concentrated in a single building situated in a isolated position near Poggibonsi, in the middle of the beautiful Tuscan countryside. A site that has a name that by itself is a promise of dreadful and mysterious stories: Strozzavolpe (that we can translate roughly as "strangle fox"). A castle with this name, may be not a common castle.

As the legend says, it was built by the famous Bonifacio, the marquis of Tuscany, in the twelth century. The noble had the intention to construct an invincible fortress in a very strategic position, controlling an important communication road. But, when he was in his dreams of power, he found himself in front of the unexpected but resolute resistance of a fox, a so wild and malefic creature that not only the masons working to the building, but even the ranks of the knights sent by the dismayed Bonifacio. Nevertheless, he did not lose heart and had a long and hard fight against the animal until he succeed to capture and kill him ("strozzandolo", say the legend, and this was the origin of the name of the site).

But the gladness of the victory lasted a very short time. Because a spoil-sport magician (and a magician is almost presente in this kind of stories) predicted him that the castle would be able to last as the body of the killed fox. What did he do? After a moment of esitation, with the practical sense of the the medieval soldiers and generally of the Tuscan people, the noble Bonifacio did not waste time and found immediately a solution although it was very expensive. So he decided to refill the body of the animal with molten gold and, as soon as it was getting cold, to immure it in the foundations of the castle.

We do not know if he had anticipated it, but making that, besides riding oneself of a dangerous opponent, he earned a formidable guard, very effective in keep the ill-intentioned at a distance from the castle. Many and many people in the centuries had searched the golden body of the fox even though the spirit of the animal wanders around the building during the full moon nights.They tell that centuries after its burial, a worker found casually it. But immediately he was with deicison ill-treated by the ghosts of three ancient knights that buried the body in an other secret site.

Perhaps it is only a legend, a fascinating legend. But, probably, someone has really found the treasure, and in relatively recent years. It was the 1870, a year of upsetting in Italy and in Europe. Terrible events that maybe the inhabitants of these lands did not understand, because they were too intented to survive in the miseries of every day. In the castle of Strozzavolpe The masons were working to restore the walls. One morning, one of the workers did not arrive to work. At the same time the other masons noted that one of the merlons to which the mason was working, has been misteriously and recently walled up. The merlon was immediately broken and in which they found an ancient terracotta pitcher and a parchment mentioning a treasure. Obviously, about the desappeared mason and his family, since that day, nobody knew nothing else.

An other mystery, then, that increases the great number of the mysteries of this castle. As, for example, the labyrinth made by secret underground passages that, so they tell, connect it even to the fortress of Poggio Imperiale, in the other slope of the valley. The castle of Strozzavolpe is also infested (may it be otherwise?) by restless ghosts that, besides the spectre of the diabolical fox, live in it assembled in an enviable concentration even for a Scottish castle.

For example the sad ghost of the young and beautiful Cassandra Franceschi, got married, as they use in that time, to a man much older than her, named Giannozzo da Capparello. One day her husband catched her on too intimate terms, in the bedroom, with a young servant. The old husband did not surely appreciate the thing. There was no possibility to apply for a divorce, a term that in those time had no place in the vocabulary. So the offended husband found more appropriate to wall up the two lovers in a room of the castle and to put to death them of hunger. Giannozzo had surely a sense of humor, even if macabre. So he started to banquet and give parties in the room near the one in which Cassandra and the servant were imprisoned, until when he was persuaded that his reveng was definitely concluded. For a joke of the destiny (that never is satisfied by its cruelty), the room in which Cassandra and her lover died of hunger, in the next centuries was transformed and became the kitchen of the castle. Of course, the ghost of the beautiful Cassandra, still injured, wanders around the rooms of the old building. They tell that you can hear clearly her sighs, especially in the "red bedroom" where, according to the tradition, she was caught with her lover, by her vindictive husband.

Others are the nocturne inhabitants of the castle. As the ones, more noisy, that infest the wing of the palace called the "Nun's and friars' house", because, once, the monks and the nuns of passage were lodged there. And where they still enjoy thereselves with their traditional (and with not much imagination, of course) outfit of noises of trailed chaines, banging doors and windows, blows on the walls, and so on.

While out-of-doors, during the full moon nights, more silently, the ghost of the devil fox with his three armed guardians. To defend the obscure secrets of this place.

The castle of Strozzavolpe is situated near Poggibonsi, in the province of Siena, and you can see it from far away. How arrive to Poggibonsi: from North take the motorway A1 and leave at issue Firenze-Certosa. Then take the connecting road Firenze-Siena until Poggibonsi North. From South: take the motorway A1 and leave at Valdichiana issue. Follow the directions to Siena, reach the connecting road Siena Firenze, then leave at Poggibonsi North.