San Quirico San Quirico d'Orcia

San Quirico has Etruscan origins which also in lack of systematic excavations are testified by the findings in the areas of Vignoni and Ripa d’Orcia, of cinerary urns and other objects which were part of the funeral furniture, today kept in the Archaeological Museum of Siena. It is mentioned for the first time on occasion of a dispute in 712 between the dioceses of Arezzo and Siena for the possession of some parishes, among which there was that of san Quirico in Osenna. The name “Osenna”, kept until the XVII century, referred in all probability, to a water course which has disappeared today and which was probably situated near the village. Osenna is an Etruscan and maybe pre-Roman toponymy. Starting from the XI century, it is more and more frequent to find the name of San Quirico in Osenna in documents which testify the increasing importance of the village, situated on the Francigena or Romea, which, in different times, saw the passage of important characters of the European political and ecclesiastical scene. In 1154 Federico I descended in Italy and went to Rome to receive the imperial crown. The Pope Adriano IV waited for Federico I to come up and from Viterbo he sent to him three cardinals. The royal troops were encamped in San Quirico and here the pontifical messengers were welcomed by the future emperor. In 1180 the Sieneses enlarged their jurisdiction over San Quirico, which then became the seat of the imperial Vicar. In 1205 in San Quirico there was the Tuscan League’s diet in order to find an agreement among the different cities, about how to behave towards Montepulciano, which didn’t want to be subordinated to the dominion of Siena. The diet ended with nothing at all and, on the contrary, it was anticipated the preambles of the conflict which will be broken out later between Siena and Montepulciano. In 1552 San Quirico witnessed helpless the passage of Carlo V’s troops, guided by Don Garzia, who turned the village into the centre from which control and tribute on the Val d’Orcia. With the falling of the Sienese Republic, San Quirico became a property of the Marchese of Marignano and then under the dominion of Cosimo de’Medici. In 1677, after being transformed into a feud with the title of marquisate by the grand duke Cosimo III, it was given to the cardinal Flavio Chigi, nephew of the Pope Alessandro VII.