The Monastery of San Galgano is a Cistercian Abbey built in 1324 which holds a very important place in the art and history of Siena. It was Tuscany’s first full on Gothic church, and later the model for the Siena Cathedral. The abbey stood near the hill of Montesiepi where Cavalier Galgano Guidotti from Chiusdino lived a life of penitence from 1148 to 1181. A circular Romanesque chapel with a hemispherical vault was built on the spot in remembrance (12th century) decorated with frescoes of the 14th century Sienese school of painting (Ambrogio Lorenzetti).
The Monastery of San Galgano began to decline during the 15th century when it was deprived of the title of Abbey (1503). The vaults and the steeple fell to the ground in 1786 and the ruins can still now be seen in all their suggestive beauty. The church was never rebuilt; it is in the shape of a Latin cross 69 m. long, with a nave and lateral aisles, pointed arches, ribbed vaults and pillars with sculptured capitals. In the adjoining monastery, you can see the Chapter Hall; the portal is ogival and the hall is divided into two naves by rows of pillars. The refectory, too, is divided into two naves with well preserved vaults.
The Montesiepi hermitage on the hill was built 50 years before the Abbey to house San Galgano’s remains and his sword which he had plunged into a rock to make a cross out of the handle.
The inside of the domed roof is constructed with 24 concentric circles of alternating white stone and terracotta. The sword in the stone and the hands of the evil man can still be seen in the church of the monastery of Montesiepi, built at the end of the 12th century as a mausoleum for the saint. Saint Galgano is buried in the church. The church has a very peculiar shape, it is built as a rotunda and historians hypothesize that it was inspired by Castel Sant’Angelo, the Pantheon in Rome or even an Etruscan tomb as the many ones visible in Volterra, the town that once controlled this area. The church was enlarged in the 14th century with the construction of a chapel with frescoes by the Sienese painter Ambrogio Lorenzetti. The rectangular side-chapel contains frescoes painted by Ambrogio Lorenzetti between 1334 and 1336, and some of his work has been restored and is still visible.
Dating back to the first half of the 14th century and very deteriorated, the fresco was detached during a restoration in 1966. Under that, a sinopia was discovered, quite different from the final picture. [1] This preparatory drawing is a typical scene of conturbatio. The Virgin looks so perturbed by the apparition of the angel, that, instinctively, her arms clasp a near column. In the finished depiction, Mary’s hands are folded on her breast, to signify a full assent to her exceptional lot. [read more]
Galgano Guidotti was a knight born to rich parents in 1148. He wanted to renounce the material world and also the arts of war. To symbolize his rejection of war, he supposedly plunged his sword into the rock, leaving only the hilt exposed to form the shape of the Cross. Later on, he performed some miracles and died in 1181. He was declared Saint in 1185.
It has been assumed that the Tuscan “sword in the stone” is a fake, made to echo the Celtic legend of King Arthur.
But a study by the medieval historian Mario Moiraghi suggests that the story of St Galgano and his sword was the origin of the myth of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, embellished by medieval troubadours as it spread from Tuscany.
The San Galgano Abbey was Tuscany’s first pure Gothic church, and it was later used as the model for the Cathedral of Siena. The abbey is built according to the typical Cistercian plan based on a Latin cross with three aisles, rich in carved capitals and rose windows, with a cloister, halls, and – atypically – a bell tower.
Over the centuries the rivalries between Siena and Florence condemned the abbey to a slow but irreversible decline, and at the end of the 18th century the bell tower collapsed destroying a great part of the roof of the church. The abbey was abandoned and the bricks and stones were used by the builders of the area to build houses and other small churches. Thanks to several restorations the cathedral is now one of the most beautiful and fascinating ruins in Tuscany, and it is well worth a visit.
The Montesiepi hermitage near the Abbey of San Galgano, Chiusdino, TuscanyThe fascinating remains of the Abbey of San Galgano, Chiusdino, TuscanyThe San Galgano Abbey, Chiusdino, TuscanySan Galgano Abbey and the sword in the stone, Chiusdino, TuscanyThe Abbey of Saint Galgano, Chiusdino, Tuscany
Suggestive images of the Abbey of San Galgano and the Montesiepi hermitage [4]
Many legends have been created to account for the absence of the roof. One of the most popular among the poor farmers of the Val di Merse was that Napoleon had stolen the supposedly golden roof of the cathedral.
Andrei Tarkovsky shot Nostalghia in Tuscany in 1983. Sets he used for his film include Bagno di Vignoni and the Abbadia di San Galgano.
The taut, semi-autobiographical screenplay – written with Tonino Guerra – tells the story of a Russian poet, Andrei Gorchakov who journeys to Italy to research the life of Maxim Beryozovsky. Beryozovsky was a Ukranian serf who, in the 18th century, became an important composer in Bologna. Stricken by nostalgia and unable to write the music that had brought him sudden fame, he returned home to serfdom, drink, humiliation and suicide.'[2]
There were two sets he used for his film, Bagno di Vignoni and the Abbadia di San Galgano. Both sets played a very important role in the film, Bagno Vignoni serving as the culmination scene, San Galgano being the backdrop of a marvellous dream sequence staging a small Russican cottage from his childhood in a medieval Tuscan Abbey.