The Hermitage of Montesiepi and the Abbey of San Galgano in Valdimerse

The Eremo di Montesiepi and the imposing ruins of the Abbey of San Galgano in Valdimerse, undoubtedly constitute the most important religious-monumental complex of the territory of the Municipality of Chiusdino and more generally of the whole territory of Siena, and one of the most relevant examples of Romanesque and Gothic-Cistercian architecture in Italy.

Wisely preserved, the Hermitage of Montesiepi dominates the skeleton of the Abbey: a lonely and silent corner of land, fascinating and collected. The Hermitage stands on top of a thick hill of oaks, the one where the young knight of Chiusdino Galgano di Guidotto retired to a hermit's life in December 1180 and where he died the following year.

The Hermitage appears to have been completed in 1185, the year of the canonization of San Galgano by Pope Lucio III. It was conceived as a "mausoleum" because it kept the tomaba of the saint and was precious custody to the rock with the sword. In fact, in the chapel is the sword of San Galgano, a witness that was both silent and eloquent of the conversion of the young Chiusdinese. The Hermitage of Montesiepi presents a chapel with a central, round plan, interrupted only by a small apse. The chapel is surmounted by a bold semi-spherical dome which, formed by concentric rings, creates the illusion of the infinite. Worthy of note are the frescoes by Ambrogio Lorenzetti , admirable in the small oratory adjacent to the Rotonda.

D uring the last decade of the twelfth century and the first years of the next century, the monastic community that had formed around the knight-hermit who had joined the Cistercian Order, had grown so much that sit Bramble in condition to transfer its headquarters in a new and larger cenobio, from the top of the hill it was necessary to descend into the plain below.

The impressive works, begun in 1218, ended in 1288. As already mentioned, the Abbey of San Galgano in Valdimerse is one of the most interesting examples of the Gothic-Cistercian style and one of the most important gates that allowed Gothic art to enter Italy.

The Abbey experienced an unexpected splendor during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, but slowly and inexorably declined from the fifteenth century onwards. The decline culminated in 1781 with the collapse of the vaults of the roof of the abbey church, in 1786 with the ruin of the bell tower, in 1789 with the ecclesiastical sentence of profanation.

The abbatial complex is made up of the famous "homeless" church and a mighty building that runs along the right arm of the transept and which constitutes what remains of the Abbey. In this building there were the sacristy, the archives, the chapter house, the parlor and the scriptorium and, on the upper floor, the dormitory and the chapel. On the right side of the abbey church there was the cloister, completely disappeared.

Because of its great historical and artistic importance, the Abbey of San Galgano deserved much other fate than that reserved by time, favored by the carelessness of men. The grandiose majesty of the ruins of the monumental Abbey; the solemn silence in which the giant leftovers are left to themselves; the sword in the rock knows how to marvel the visitor, speak to his soul, arouse in his heart an intimate emotion and in his intellect imaginative images.