San Galgano Abbey

Galgano Guidotti, a knight, is said to have driven his sword into a stone here around 1180 as a renunciation of arms, and the sword remains, its hilt and a few centimetres of blade set in rock inside the round chapel of Montesiepi on the hill. Metal dating carried out in 2001 found the blade consistent with the twelfth century rather than a later forgery. The Cistercian abbey built below in the thirteenth century was abandoned after plague and neglect; the roof collapsed in the eighteenth century and the bell tower fell, leaving walls, windows and columns standing open to the sky. It is used for concerts and has been filmed repeatedly.

History

The abbey grew around the hermitage of Galgano Guidotti, who died in 1181, and work on its church began around 1220 and took some sixty years. Its monks often served as high magistrates of the Biccherna, the treasury of the Republic of Siena, but from 1363 John Hawkwood and his men plundered the monastery, and by the end of the 14th century only the abbot remained (Wikipedia, Abbey of San Galgano).

What's there

• The roofless nave - Gothic walls and windows standing open to the sky.
• The sword in the stone - a twelfth-century blade set in rock at Montesiepi.
• The round chapel - a striped brick and stone rotunda on the hill above.
• The empty setting - fields and woods with no village around it.

When to go

April to October; it is exposed with no roof, so rain and midsummer sun are both felt. Concerts run in summer evenings. Winter light is dramatic but cold.

Before you go

There is no shelter inside the abbey in bad weather. The chapel sword is behind glass. Facilities on site are minimal and it is a drive from anywhere.

Nearby

Siena lies northeast; the Maremma runs south.

Key facts