(A ruined abbey and a chapel with a sword in a stone.)

Open 0800-1200 and 1400 to sunset. About 30 kilometres along the Roccastrada road. Go straight through Rosia and on until you begin to see yellow signs to San Galgano. Visit both the chapel on the hill and the ruined monastery church which lies below it, about half a kilometre away.

The legend of San Galgano

San Galgano was a rich, aristocratic young man from nearby Chiusdino, born in 1148. Overcome with spiritual longings, he deserted the gay and frivolous life that he was expected to lead, albeit with a few battles thrown in for exercise. He built himself a round wooden hut on top of a small hill called Montesiepe, and became a hermit. To demonstrate to his mother and sister his resolution to shun henceforth frivolity and battles, he plunged his sword into a cleft in a rock which had appeared in the middle of his hut. There it remained stuck until a very few years ago when some youths from a neighbouring village dared each other to remove the sword and managed to break off the hilt. It has now been cemented back in and a glass case constructed around it. The cement makes the whole thing look bogus, but the experts say that it definitely is a twelfth century sword.

The chapel

San Galgano died in his thirties, but he had already become famous for his holiness. Very shortly after his death, at the end of the twelfth century, a circular chapel was built on the site of his hut. This remains, together with the sword and some rather damaged frescoes by the fourteenth century artist Ambrogio Lorenzetti (who did the frescoes of Good and Bad Government in the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena). San Galgano appears in the fresco on the left of the altar in the little baptistery, carrying a diminutive slice of rock with the sword sticking in it.

In a little room at the entrance to the chapel, honeys and strange liqueurs and obscure tisanes with allegedly curative properties are sold. The "millefiori" honey is good.

The abbey church

Later, in the thirteenth century, a Cistercian abbey was built below Montesiepe, one of the largest in Italy, modelled on the great Cistercian foundations in Burgundy; indeed in style it is far closer to severe French (or English) Gothic than to the lacier Italian version. In the fourteenth century, the monastery was sacked by the English mercenary captain, Sir John Hawkwood of the White Company, who was employed by both Florence and Pisa at different times to fight their battles.The monastery never recovered, and when the monastic orders were suppressed at the end of the eighteenth century, the monks were dispersed and the monastery became a farm. Now all that remains are the great walls and windows of the abbey church, romantically roofless but still inspiring, together with the monastery and scriptorium of the monastery; and a tiny bit of cloister.

1980s