Castello dei Conti Ubertini

The castle sits within the Casentino valley facing the road that links Rassina and Chiusi della Verna, its silhouette partly concealed by centuries-old cypresses. Its plan is irregular and evolved with each campaign of work, producing a cluster of linked residential and defensive buildings rather than a single uniform block. A long driveway approaches what was once the parade ground, giving the complex a clear ceremonial arrival axis.

Entry is through a broad round-arched portal that opens into a sheltered courtyard where vaults bear fresco painting. Adjacent to this space stands the guardhouse, which displays coats of arms and sculpted busts associated with the Ubertini family. A bell tower rises above the group of buildings and contains a bronze bell dated to the fifteenth century, which remains in place within the tower’s structure.

A stair leads from the courtyard to the principal living quarters. The great hall of arms occupies an upper level and features a coffered ceiling set with seventeenth-century polychrome terracotta tiles and a large pietra serena fireplace carved with the Ubertini coat of arms. The complex also includes a private chapel in the Baroque style and a chamber identified as the bishop’s bedroom, both integrated into the residential sequence.

On the top floor a chamber known as the room of sentences preserves objects tied to judicial practice: a noose and an axe fixed into a block are on display, and a wooden gallery projects into the space from which pronouncements were read into the adjoining council hall. A heavy wooden door opens onto a narrow prison accessed directly from the internal circulation, the components of punishment and detention remaining evident within the building fabric.