The Mastrojanni estate was established in 1975 through the combination of the Loreto and San Pio manor farms, in the area of Castelnuovo dell'Abate. Both farms, or ‘podere’ were founded long ago to watch over an important route, used since the time of the Etruscans and then by the Romans. During the Middle Ages, given the strategically important location, Podere San Pio was further developed as a fortified settlement, protecting two of the most important routes of the time, the ‘Via Francigena’ and the famous ‘Via dei Papi’.
Relais Mastrojanni is nestled in these hills, in a locality redolent with the history of ancient Italy. Near here passed the Via Francigena, the sole pilgrimage route from northern Europe to Rome, the centre of the Christian world. From the time of Charlemagne onward, the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire, the kings and popes, nobles, cardinals, and the peoples of all kinds, have visited the territories of Montalcino.
“The presence of the poderi Loreto and San Pio is noted as early as the year 1208, in the documents of the Sienese Republic, as a fortified ‘castrum’ composing part of the territorial defensive system. In the 1300s, Saint Catherine of Siena, an Italian theologian and philosopher, travelled the nearby road, past the Orcia river, to visit her spiritual father in the Abbey of Sant’Antimo. The founding of the abbey is itself credited to Charlemagne, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, and dates back to the 9th century AD.”
In modern times, until the late 18th century the Podere Loreto was a prosperous agricultural estate under the control of the Hospital of Santa Maria della Croce.
