A landscape that of San Quirico d’Orcia, but also its historic center, which over the years have served as a splendid location for a number of Italian and international films. No less important were the films that featured Bagno Vignoni.
Remember the bloodiest scene in The Gladiator? That of the massacre of the wife and child of Maximus Decimus Meridius at the hands of Roman soldiers.
It took place on the outskirts of San Quirico: the Gladiator’s home is the Podere di Poggio Manzuoli, about 500 meters from Porta Cappuccini (on the left side of the road towards Pienza)
The Gladiator, colossal year 2000, directed by Ridley Scott, starring Russell Crowe as Maximus Decimus Meridius, the Gladiator; and among others with Joaquin Phoenix and Connie Nielsen, among numerous awards it also won five Oscars (as best film, best leading actor for Crowe, best costumes, best sound and best visual effects).
It was 1983 when Soviet director Andrei Tarkovsky shot his hit film, Nostalghia, in Bagno Vignoni, a film that helped boost the fame of the Val d’Orcia’s thermal jewel.
A few years later, in 1992, the flooded square of Bagno Vignoni is the location for Al lupo al lupo, directed and starring Carlo Verdone, with Francesca Neri and Sergio Rubini. Famous scene the night bath of the three brothers in the bathtub.
In 2000, again in Bagno Vignoni, a scene from Al momento giusto was filmed, a comedy directed and starring Giorgio Panariello as a provincial journalist, with Kasia Smutniak and Luisa Corna. In the center of the pool a romantic candlelight dinner between Panariello and Corna.
More comedies: Massimo Ceccherini directs and stars (in 2003) in San Quirico’s La mia vita a stelle e strisce, in which Swedish model Victoria Silvstedt is the protagonist. Scenes to remember include Ceccherini and the jubilant Silvsedt between the Collegiata and Palazzo Chigi and a skit in a village supermarket.
How not to remember I Medici, a successful Anglo-Italian TV series, aired in 2016. The first edition created by Frank Spotnitz and Nicholas Meyer, starring Richard Madden (Cosimo de’ Medici) and Stuart Martin (Lorenzo), and with Dustin Hoffman as Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici.
A U.S. production, in 2017, sets La voce della pietra (based on the novel by Silvio Raffo) in San Quirico, directed by Eric D.Howell. Lead actresses include Caterina Murino and Emilia Clarke; locations covered include the Horti Leonini, Via Poliziano and Via Dante Alighieri (Palazzo Chigi area).
Cameras on the move in San Quirico even in the year of Covid. In 2020 it was Tutti per 1 -1 per tutti, a comedy by Giovanni Veronesi, starring Pierfrancesco Favino, Rocco Papaleo, Valerio Mastandrea, Margherita Buy and Giulia Michelini.
