UnipolSai and Italia Nostra together to renovate the Petriolo Hot Springs
The fourteenth century spa area, beloved by emperors and popes, will undergo a three-year restoration.
The Petriolo Hot Springs restoration project has begun. It was initiated by UnipolSai, the Unipol Group insurance company, that will invest €4m in the area it owns, and supported by Italia Nostra. The spa dates back to the fourteenth century, and lies in the Municipality of Monticiano, in the Merse natural reserve between the Provinces of Siena and Grosseto.
The project was approved by the Archaeological department of Siena and is coordinated by Italia Nostra. It will include renovation of the three towers, the door, the fifteenth century town walls, the lodging house, the thermal pools, the small church and the surrounding wood. It will take three years to complete the work, but the first part (the lodging house, northern tower, eastern wall and part of the northern wall) will be ready in 14 months.
The Petriolo Hot Springs restoration project was presented at a press conference today in Florence, at the Palazzo Bastogi, with the following in attendance also Pierluigi Stefanini, Chairperson of the Unipol Group.
Pierluigi Stefanini, Chairperson of the Unipol Group, said: “The area owned by UnipolSai could be managed with a lower outlay of energy and resources or we could decide to back an extraordinary joint redevelopment project for the common good. We chose the latter, adopting a strategic approach to create shared values, thanks to civil involvement and participation, the transparency of the work, and the development of territorial marketing. We also chose to measure the expected impact with the most modern measurement methods, and expect the Social Return on Investment (SROI) to be much higher than two, i.e. for each euro that we invest, the impact in the territory will be more than double”.
Read the complete Press Release.