Where monks still tread

Badia Passignano: the Abbey

Plumb in the middle of the Antinori wine estates in Chianti sits the Abbey of San Michele a Passignano, in its nest of cypresses.


The abbey was founded in 890 and joined the Vallombrosans (a branch of the Benedictine Order), in the 11th century, under the aegis of Saint John Gualbert or San Giovanni Gualberto (for more on his Vallombrosans see a previous post, Of Monks and Forests). The abbey has been renovated several times and resembles more a castle than a monastery. 

the forbidding western bastions of the monastery, softened by caper bushes

Pisa's High Line

Seeing the city from the heights

Since 2018 Pisa has opened to the public a walkway along its ancient city walls. We tried it out recently and recommend it if you have an hour or two to spend in the city and are looking for a novel perspective.

The walkway runs for three kilometres between Torre di Legno Piazza del Rosso, not far from the Arno river, and Piazza dei Miracoli. We highly recommend following it in this direction, as the views of Pisa's most famous monuments are enjoyed best this way. If it is summer, preferably choose the morning, so that you have the sun behind you.

Walking around Villa Vignamaggio

Past, present and future revealed in a Chianti valley
- part one -

Anyone who has seen the 1993 film version of Much Ado about Nothing by Kenneth Branagh, may recall the opening scenes where the male protagonists gallop home across a verdant valley towards the villa in Messina where the play's action takes place. The villa featured splendidly in the film is not in Sicily but in the Comune of Greve in Chianti, a 15 minute drive from Le Ripe: Villa Vignamaggio.

Although the Vignamaggio website includes a cursory (and not entirely accurate) summary of the Villa's interesting history, it excludes its context: the broad, sun-filled valley it dominates. 

Abbadia San Salvatore, on the slopes of Monte Amiata

 A Town Full of Surprises

 

Monte Amiata

It is not where most tourists stop on their way around Monte Amiata in southern Tuscany. Abbadia San Salvatore is a township of 6000 souls on the northern slopes of Tuscany's most easily identifiable mountain. Unassuming and ordinary, it is the sort of place you drive through hurriedly, on your way to somewhere interesting.

And yet we stopped: was it that lunch beckoned, or was it that we noticed a sign proclaiming Abbadia San Salvatore as the home of an ancient Bible? Somehow the quest for lunch and our curiosity combined to make us stop. We would discover that this seemingly dull, grey town held several surprises.

Museum of the Works of the Cathedral, Florence

The Latest Reincarnation of the Flower of Florence

overview:

The Romans called Florence Florentia. Since the 11th century the city's crest has been the giglio or lily (fleur-de-lis but in fact a stylised iris). Struck in Florence in 1252, the first commercially important gold coin in Europe was called the fiorino -florin- for this reason, and bore the fiordaliso on its obverse side, with Saint John the Baptist, Florence's patron saint, on the reverse. Florence's imposing and iconic Cathedral (or as it is called here, Duomo), is dedicated to Saint Mary of the Flower while the Baptistery is dedicated to Saint John the Baptist. All this is just a roundabout way of underlining the symbolic potency of the flower to Florence's story.

Sculptures in the brand-new light-filled atrium

Santa Maria del Fiore was commissioned in 1294 by the Commune of Florence to replace Santa Maria Reparata (a church which, in my view, occupied the available space far more appropriately than its successor). Initially the 'Opera' referred to the institution which financed and oversaw the construction of the Duomo; over time the Opera evolved to oversee the Cathedral's continual conservation and decoration and incorporate the Baptistery (completed in 1128), Giotto's Belltower (begun in 1334) and the Museum. 

Of Monks and Forests

The Casentino Forests and Camaldoli

Our jaunt to the Casentino was largely motivated by a practical question. How best to care for, safeguard, sustain and conserve the woodland at Le Ripe? The guardians of the Casentine Forests might have some answers. We had also heard that the forests are well worth a visit.

The Casentine Forests, a national park covering 36,800 hectares, are renowned for their extension, beauty and age - and for enjoying, for at least eight centuries, the guardianship of various communities of monks. Saint Francis of Assisi chose La Verna as a place of prayer in 1224 and two centuries earlier, in 1012, the Benedictine Saint Romuald, who spent most of his life founding hermitages all over Italy, chose a south-facing hillside in the heart of beech and fir forests in the southern Casentino as one of his last works. 

Saint Romuald, detail from Fra Angelico's Crucifixion and Saints,St Mark's Florence, 1441-2

The territory, known as Campus Maldoli, after its landowner, became Camaldoli over time. Here Romualdo built five cells for hermits and, further down the hillside, founded a monastery to offer hospitality for travellers and those in search of spiritual peace. This double function persists today, with 8 monks leading their life of prayer and work in the hermitage and 22 monks taking care of hospitality and the more material aspects of life in the monastery below. There is a flourishing commercial aspect to the complex, which sells elegantly-packaged cosmetics, edibles and ceramics.

Antica Farmacia and its products recall the more famous one in Florence: but this is possibly older

The 'Casentino' denominates a broad valley in the province of Arezzo, east and north of Florence, through which the infant river Arno flows. The Casentino is separated from the upper Valdarno by the massif of Pratomagno. Soci, Stia, Poppi and Bibbiena lie in the valley and are still famous for their centuries-old production of panno feltrato or felted wool cloth  which was first created for the Camaldolese monks. But behind and above these towns rise the forested hills and mountains we had come to visit. The best is almost invariably in the hills.

Piero della Francesca and the Fall of Light on Solid Bodies

The Dream of Constantine 

in The Legend of the True Cross, Basilica of San Francesco, Arezzo

overview of entire choir and its glorious frescoes

The Legend of the True Cross, Piero della Francesca's masterpiece in Arezzo, narrates how, over the centuries, the wood of the apple tree in the Garden of Eden became the cross on which Christ was crucified, through the interventions of the Queen of Sheba, Solomon and the Romans. Later in the story the cross's pedigree is verified and the cross itself plays a role in battles where Christians triumph over pagans. The Annunciation completes the cycle.
For a 3D virtual tour, have a look here.

The Sword in the Stone and the Open-Air Abbey

Chiusdino, Montesiepi and  

San Galgano

Chiusdino today

An hour and a half's drive south of Le Ripe, in the Val di Merse, lie several medieval treasures which attract visitors all year round.

reconstruction of Chiusdino as it might have looked between the 12th and 13th centuries, around the time Galgano Guidotti lived there

The medieval nucleus of the hilltop town of Chiusdino, the Hermitage of Montesiepi and the Abbey of San Galgano are linked by their association with a 12th century knight who said farewell to arms in order to become a hermit.

San Galgano, Ambrogio Lorenzetti 1338-49,Sala dei Nove, Palazzo Pubblico Siena

Monte Oliveto Maggiore and Sant'Antimo

The Two Abbeys

If you are travelling south of Siena, to the area known as the Crete Senesi (literally the Sienese Clays), and if you are interested in medieval and renaissance history, art and architecture, you will have to make a stop at the abbeys of Monte Oliveto Maggiore and Sant'Antimo, both founded by the Benedictines.  The abbeys are interesting in themselves for several reasons, but the contrast between the two is also fascinating.

Monte Oliveto sprawls above a clay cliff on a hill south of Asciano. It is a considerable complex of brick buildings; bricks are the material of choice in this area: the clay they are made from is ubiquitous.

Sant'Antimo on the other hand sits cradled in a valley of the river Starcia, surrounded by olives and fields of wheat. It is south of Montalcino, not far from Monte Amiata. Sant'Antimo is partly in ruins and on a much smaller scale than its neighbour. It is built of local travertine and alabaster-onyx.

First to the larger abbey, the working monastery which produces wine, oil, liqueurs, pulses and spelt in its still extensive territory while the monks restore ancient manuscripts. 

San Leolino, Panzano

A Charming Church

the view from the church, looking west

It is a truth universally acknowledged that churches are to be found in the most panoramic sites. San Leolino, near Panzano in Chianti, is no exception. 

The oft-cited explanation for churches' prime locations is: they got there first. More accurately: they frequently took over from other cults and civilizations which got there first. The Etruscans preferred hilltop sites for their towns and their necropoli, often situated on two adjoining elevations. (One wonders if it was simply for defensive reasons.) Panzano is a case in point: of Etruscan origin, it was also inhabited by the Romans who were keen on elevation, when available. 

the elegant 16th century facade with its asymmetrical portico or loggia