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San Galgano's Abbey

San Gagano Abbey between history and legend, in Tuscany, in the heart of Val di Merse

Building work began in 1218. From an architectonic viewpoint the Cistercian rules envisaged outstanding formal sobriety inspired by the moral rigour of San Bernardo’s ideal.

It was not at random that the abbey was built in a place already sanctified by the presence of the Monte Siepi chapel (late 12th century) where the young hermit Galgano Guidotti had lived. He died in 1181 and was canonised in 1185. The abbey was consecrated seventy years after the first stone was laid, but its life was relatively brief. Famine in 1329 and the subsequent plague epidemic of 1348 marked its decline. In the mid 16th century the material end of the abbey began when the lead roof covering was sold. At the end of the 18th century lighting struck the campanile, the last roof vaults collapsed and it was definitively abandoned and deconsecrated.

But it was actually the beginning of the history of the abbey we can admire today. The monks are no more, no rosaries are told, there’s no longer an altar, but its mystical solitude is impregnated by a spirituality as transparent as its open roof. There is no religion in the abbey but rather a strong religious sense.
Near the abbey the hermitage of Monte Siepi is the result of subsequent building works (14th century) around the original circular plan body.

One of these is certainly the rectangular chapel later frescoed with the history of San Galgano by Ambrogio Lorenzetti between 1334 and 1336.

The chapel interior has some highly interesting motifs, starting with the hemispheric vaulted ceiling in concentric two-tone rings created with brick and travertine. The circular form symbolises the heavenly vault identified in the concepts of perfection and the infinite, due to the absence of angles and to the equidistance of all points from the centre..