The town is situated on a steep tuff rock, 313 metres above sea-level. The area of Pitigliano and far to the south of Rome is characterized by tuff stone, a hardened type of volcanic magma. The typical Tuscan landscape with small farm houses on soft hills is rarely found here. South Tuscany is wild and many sided, similar to neighboring Latio, the area around Rome. Small creeks have cut steep valleys into the landscape and there is a lot of woodland. Not far from Pitigliano is Lake Bolsena, a huge water-filled crater and the largest Italian lake. From Siena you can see Mount Amiata, an isolated volcano 1738 metres high, and a favourite skiing area in winter. Near the coast are extended flat zones, which were notorious for malaria contamination up to the 1930's. This was the area that was home for famous bandits like Domenico Tiburzi. Nowadays the Maremma coast 50 kilometres from Pitigliano has beautiful beaches that are hardly developed.

SIGHTS:

Caves and Cellars: Southern Tuscany was once one of the most important centres of the Etruscans. There are numerous cave-tombs of that period around Pitigliano, caves cut deep into the tuff, that are today used as cellars and sheds. Later Pitigliano became Roman. There's hardly anything left from this period. But under the town houses are cellars in use which have lots of little niches, in which 2000 years ago the urns of the dead used to stand.

In mediaeval times, from the 9 th century on, the Langobard family Aldobrandesci ruled the region of Pitigliano. After 1312 the Orsini family took over and from 1604 the Medici's.

Of further interest is the Jewish history of Pitigliano. For a long time there was an extraordinary large Jewish community, that influenced the cultural life of the town together with the gentile population.

The castle stands at the entrance to the old town. Next to it runs the impressive mediaeval aqueduct, that supplied the town with water.

 On the piazza are two bars: The Bar Centrale and the Bar Italia. In the mediaeval period the level of the piazza was some 6 metres lower that today. Since then it's been raised, so that you can hardly imagine that there's a chapel in the cellar under the Bar Italia with old frescoes (unfortunately neither maintained nor accessible).

To the left of the city hall is the entrance to an interesting museum with old agricultural and household tools and appliances from day-to-day life, mainly used in kitchens, agriculture and viticulture. Have you ever seen a cardanic stretcher for steep fields? It's on show here. From the museum you can start an underground walk past the castle foundations and through long tuff tunnels (ask for a tour at the tourist office on the left at the entrance to the old town).

On Piazza San Gregorio is a 15 th century cathedral with historic paintings by Pietro Aldo. The oldest church of Pitigliano (mentioned in 1274) is San Rocco, almost at the end of the old part of town. It has an unusual trapezoidal layout and elegant, slim travertine columns.

Underneath the cathedral, in the former Ghetto (entrance just past the tunnel on Via Zuccarelli) you can visit the restored synagogue and the Forno delle Azzime (a disused kosher bakery), evidence of the once flourishing Jewish culture of Pitigliano.

Outside of town on the road to Sorano, just pass a bridge, is the entrance to a park created at the end of the 16th century, in which on the north side you can see statues and stone seats carved from the tuff.

JEWISH PITIGLIANO: 

Pitigliano once had a flourishing Jewish community. Therefore it was even called "The Little Jerusalem". Here you can read more about that:

The Interior of the Synagogue

SYNAGOGUE:

Contact: City Hall - Telephone: 0564.616-322

Entrance of the Synagogue - Drawing: © Peter PetriPeter Petri

JEWISH MUSEUM:

JEWISH HISTORY:

The history of the Jewish community of Pitigliano is extraordinary. Since the middle of the 16th century more and more Jews came to Pitigliano. Partly owed to the fact that they were forced out of the Papal States (the border to Latio, a former papal territory is only 5 km away) As time passed a flourishing Jewish community life developed here.

1779: THE CASE OF PITIGLIANO - BY ROBERTO G. SALVADORI
 
A confrontation between Christians and Jews during the anti-French rebellion in a small town in Tuscany's maremma district. How solidarity can be born of violence.

At the end of the 18th century the Jews living in the single states into which Italy was divided at the time experienced a decisive moment in their history with the entry of the armies of revolutionary France on the Italian peninsular. Wherever they arrived, the Napoleonic armies liberated them from the ghettos in which they were confined and from the numerous harassments to which they were subjected, declaring them citizens equal to all others.
This was the first emancipation of the Jews, which came, mainly, like an unexpected gift, from outside. The second was to come - after the Restoration, which re-introduced the old oppressive legislation - through the direct and prominent participation of the Jews themselves in the Risorgimento: with Italian unity the process was completed and until the racial legislation of the Fascist regime (1938) there were to be no more differences between the juridic condition of the Jews and that of other Italians. The operation between 1796-1799 was no painless one. If it was a welcome surprise for the Jews, for most of the population among whom they lived it was a scandalous and unacceptable measure. The common town-dwellers and, even more, the country people felt a deep-seated suspicion of and hostility towards what at that time was known as the la Nazione ebraica (the Jewish Nation). A strong religious prejudice had taken root in most of the population and had generated social (if not racial) prejudices that were no less profound. The separation between Jews and Christians, which had occurred in about the 4th century A.D., had soon become an attitude of prevarication towards the minority, resulting in an interminable series of measures that seriously limited the liberty of those who belonged to the minority.
It was with stupor and indignation that the Christians saw the enemies of the ‘true’ religion and the alleged murderers of God enter the Guardia Nazionale, hold public office, acquire the right to own private property and contract mixed marriages. When, in the spring of 1799, the Austro-Russian armies, with a series of victories, compelled the French to abandon most of their conquests in Italy, these resentments found expression in episodes of unprecedented violence. Even Tuscany - "mild", or reputedly mild, Tuscany - was the scene of such episodes. There were anti-Jewish demonstrations wherever there were Jews: in Livorno, Pisa, Florence, Siena, Monte San Savino (in the province of Arezzo), and Pitigliano (in the province of Grosseto).
The gravest incidents occurred in Monte San Savino and Siena.

In Monte San Savino the keillà (community) which dated as far back as the mid-seventeenth century (though there had been Jews in the town since the fifteenth century) was driven out in July 1799 and its members, who included Salamone Fiorentino, the first Jewish poet to have a place in Italian literature, were scattered between Siena, Florence and Livorno, and never returned. In Siena the "Viva Maria" band - the reactionary movement with its origins and base in Arezzo - banded together with the town’s thugs and attacked the ghetto, sacked the synagogue and killed, or rather butchered, thirteen Jews (several of whom, gravely wounded, were burnt alive in the Piazza del Campo). And it is worth recalling that a similar, if less savage, pogrom had occurred ten days earlier at Senigallia, in the Marche: there too there were thirteen victims. Things went differently in Pitigliano. The events there mark, at least partially, an exception worthy of mention.
In the two weeks between June 4 and 19, 1799 the Arezzo insurgents trickled into the town. The inhabitants, to tell the truth, greeted them in much the same manner as they had greeted the French. In that remote and quiet country village, where nothing noteworthy had happened for a century and a half, the arrival of both produced unease rather than enthusiasm. In any case, Pitigliano too saw the formation of a "comitato" (committee), modelled on the Suprema Deputazione del Governo provvisorio della citta’ di Arezzo, consisted of five worthies which supported what was called at the time of the insurgenza. It was a short-lived alliance: at the beginning of October it was dissolved on the pretext that it had achieved its aims.

On June 2, two days before the "Viva Maria" bands appeared in the area of Pitigliano, two or three Jews had been arrested and the precious objects they had with them were confiscated. From the beginning of the presence of Jews in Pitigliano and Sorano (the second half of the 16th century) the oligarchy which held sway over the two villages there had included a minority animated by profound anti-Jewish sentiments. Needless to say, this minority took advantage of the situation to strike a blow at the Jews, whom they branded as enemies on two counts: as deniers of Christ and as Jacobins, that is, allies and protectees of the French, themselves bracketed among the unbelievers. Nor should it be forgotten that the popular image of the Jews was that they were rich; a conviction that was not unfounded since, within the framework of that dreadfully poor agricultural economy, the Jews, who pursued commercial and artisan activities, modest though these were and at times at the bare subsistence level, enjoyed a comparatively better condition to that of the wretched local peasants and shepherds.
In the days that followed, with the arrival of members of "Viva Maria", the number of convicts increased, reaching thirty-one, of whom fourteen were Jews. The others were Christians who were reputed to be pro-French. On June 12 the comitato ordered the Nazione Ebrea (Jewish Nation) to hand over eighteen pounds of silver.

In the 19th century the living conditions of the Italian Jews improved. he Jewish segment of the population of Pitigliano rose to around 20 % in 1850- unique in Italy. After the unification of the country in 1871 the Jews were granted legal emancipation and subsequently their share of the population of Pitigliano sank, because many families left the place to look for a better future in the larger cities. By 1931 the Jewish community only comprised of about 70 members and was therefore united with the community in Livorno.

In the 30's the situation of the Jews deteriorated. Beginning around 1936 massive anti-Semite propaganda began, and after the installation of racial laws in 1938 the situation began to become unbearable for the remaining Jews. Those who could, emigrated, others were deported. By lucky circumstances and also by the help of gentile Italians, who risked their lives, apparently all the Jews of Pitigliano survived. Today there is no Jewish community any more, but the cultural heritage is maintained. The impressive synagogue has been restored and cultural events take place there. The "forno delle azzime" (the kosher bakery), is once again accessible. There's still a large Jewish cemetery, that can be visited on request.

Pitigliano is also well know for its wine. The "Bianco di Pitigliano" has received many prizes. A kosher version also exists that has become more and more popular over the last years.