Inside the abbey of San Galgano

• Photographer
  Claudio Beffa

In the heart of Tuscany, at a certain distance from the most touristic and photographed places, there is a valley between the towns of Chiusdino and Monticiano where a majestic construction stands from many centuries. Approaching to it makes you realize that, instead of a common christian place of worship, what reveals itself to your eyes is an imposing ruin. The foundations of the abbey of San Galgano have been laid during the Middle Age, in 1218, in the name of Galgano Guidotti, a noble knight who refused the violence and the depravation of that time, to embrace the hermitage and to pursue the peace. The abbey gained great importance and has been protected and funded by the Holy Roman Emperors and the Pope; the Cistercian monks became more and more influent, to the point of representing a special economic and logistic ally of the Republic of Siena. Then, from the 14th century, a series of tragic events led the abbey to ruin: a severe famine has been followed by the Black Death of 1348, that exterminated almost all the Cistercians monks (as well as about 100 millions of people all around Europe). To make matters worse, in the following years the abbey has been plundered more than once by mercenaries and soldiers of fortune. So, a long period of decadence begun: for some centuries the abbey remained almost abandoned and, when the roof has been even dismantled to be sold as construction material, the downfall reduced the structure as we can see today.

Italian travel and landscape photographer