Belcaro, superbly situated and thickly clothed round with a magnificent grove of rich, dark-green ilex-trees, was a strongly fortified place in the early days of the Republic, and in the fourteenth century it belonged to the Savini. At the beginning of 1377 it was much decayed, and Nanni di Ser Vanni Savini gave it to St Catherine, with the consent of the government, to be made into a convent of "religious women who shall continually pray for the city and inhabitants of Siena." She called it Santa Maria degli Angeli, and several of her letters are addressed from it. Later on, the convent became a fortress once more, and at one time belonged to the Bellanti; in 1525 it came into the hands of the Turamini, a rich family of bankers. Crescenzio Turamini had the present palace, loggia and chapel built from the designs of Baldassare Peruzzi, and employed the master himself to decorate them with frescoes. On the ceiling of a hall on the ground floor is the Judgment of Paris, which has caught not a little of the Raphaelesque grace and charm of the decorations of the Farnesina. It has been repainted. A loggia is likewise covered with decorative work, mythological scenes and arabesques, which have been so modernised by restoration that nothing really remains of Peruzzi's original work save the invention and design. In the chapel there are a Madonna and Saints behind the altar from his hand, with Evangelists and Saints on the walls, and the arms of the Turamini above. These are practically Peruzzi's last works, and were finished at the beginning of 1535, but have all been more or less ruined by the restorers. In a room in the villa there is a Madonna and Child with St Catherine and San Bernardino--a lovely little picture by Matteo di Giovanni.