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HISTORY OF THE CHIANTI REGION

To note that the region’s economy was florid as can be evidence proven by the various commercial contracts stipulated.
The origin of the long war between Florence and Siena can be found in the special status of Florence, which comprised not one but two dioceses. As the Chianti region was under the spiritual guidance of Fiesole’s diocese, the Florentines thought that their sovereign right was extended over the borders with Siena’s and Fiesole’s dioceses. The Sienese were naturally worried about this situation, because the enemies were very close to the city’s gates. The first battle was in 1082, when the Florentines accused the Sienese of having collaborating with the Emperor Henry IV during the Florence’s siege. The first treaty between Florence and Siena was stupid, but as we known, in the 1103 the conflict kept on for long time; to come the Chianti a battle-field, not only because it was a borderland, but also because “his geographic conformation made it was suitable for fortification: two real and proper defensive lines came to be created. The castles of Aiola, Cetamura, Cerreto, Selvole and Sesta were part of the Sienese fortifications; those of , Brolio, Cacchiano, Monteluco, Montecastelli, Montemarchi, Rentennano and Tornano defended the Florentine zone.”
Exemplary in the contest of the Florentine conquest of Chianti the story of the castle of Montegrossi –residence of an imperial officer who had military, political and financial control of the surrounding region and was conquered for the first time in 1172 and definitively in 1198.

Carrying on in the narration of the continual CONFLICT BETWEEN THE TWO REPUBLICS, the Florentines succeeded in conquering the castle of Vignale in the 1129, in 1141 took possession of and sacked the suburb out of the Camollia gate (the north gate of Siena). A year later they won the Sienese troops at Montemaggio. Not always the Florentines won; specially since the Conti Guidi – feudatories in Chianti – intervened in the conflict backing Siena up; the Florentines looked for the help of the Sienese feudatories (Cacciaconti, Aldobrandeschi). Those alliances between free cities and feudatories were beyond the Emperor’s control, so that he tried to find the solution.
The Sienese Pope Alexander the 3rd tried to be a peace - counsellor and in 1163 imposed religious boundaries, that should be valid also as political ones; but Florence however during the battle of Asciano 1174 took his revenge and thousand enemy soldiers were taken prisoners.
In 1197 the Emperor died. The free cities of Tuscany formed in a league to defend themself from any tyranny. This league was approved by the Pope and by the feudatories. They made the best of a bad bargain.

Now it’s time to speak about the famous LEGEND OF THE BLACK ROOSTER: since always the symbol of the whole Chianti region. Florence pretended to fix the boundary line with Siena trough the Chianti region and Siena asked to settle the affair by arbitration: the podestà of Poggibonsi was called in as an umpire and stipulated that a horseman should set out at cock’s crow from their respective communities and gallop down the highway:

where they met would be the frontier; “the Sienese selected for the purpose a fine, much-pampered white rooster, which had become unusually plump because of its rich diet. The Florentines chose a black rooster and gave it so little to eat that on the appointed day it began to crow long before dawn. As a result, the Florentine rider set out early and met the other horseman at Croce Fiorentina – only 19 Km far away from Siena -: for this reason, virtually all of the Chianti Classico zone passed into the jurisdiction of the republic of the lily.” Whatever the truth of this tale may have been (Vasari painted a black rooster on the ceiling of the Hall of the Five Hundred in Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio), thanks to the peace of Fonterutoli (1201) and the agreement in Santa Maria at Poggibonsi (“lodo di Poggibonsi”, 1203) most of Chianti passed definitely into Florences’ keeping. But it didn’t mean the end of the hostilities between the two communities.
In the 1250 the Florentine Republic divided the region into self-governing jurisdiction called Leghe (League), among them the “Chianti-League”, that joined the villages of Castellina, Gaiole e Radda, that had to defend not only their territory, but also the Florentine one (this division was valid until 1774). In 1384 the Chianti-League established a statute, chose a black rooster in gold field as emblem and we like to remember that one of his first laws prohibited the harvest before the 29th September, in order to preserve wine’s quality and market.

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