Pitigliano

Pitigliano rises on a rocky height in southern Tuscany, its clustered houses and fortress overlooking the deep valleys below. The district was inhabited in Etruscan times, and the medieval town became the seat of a county under the Aldobrandeschi. A Jewish community later made its home here, earning Pitigliano the name of Little Jerusalem.

The county passed to the Orsini family in 1293, beginning a long series of intermittent wars with Siena that lasted for some 150 years. A settlement in 1455 recognized Pitigliano's status as a county while placing it under Sienese sovereignty. The Orsini castle remained the centre of their lordship. In 1604 Count Giovanni Antonio ceded the fief to Grand Duke Ferdinando I de' Medici, bringing it into the Tuscan state.