San Galgano

The other day, we went on one of the school field trips I signed up for- San Galgano.

We took a bus to San Galgano. Located near Sienna, It is in a part of Italy that still has a very medieval feel to it. It was about an hour and a half bus ride through the countryside.

Here we are, San Galgano. Built in the 1200s, it is one of the first gothic style churches in Italy. The roof caved in a long time ago because its life as a church was relatively short and it was abandoned for long after that. It is really neat to go see today however.

The landscape here is equally beautiful. The countryside of Sienna.

San Galgano is in the countryside and there are beautiful green fields all around. Did I mention that its November when I went here!? It seems that in most parts of Europe, it doesn't seem to get as cold as it does in much of America, the gulf stream keeps everything from getting too cold. Snow is very rare in Florence and Rome. It just doesn't seem to reach freezing much and this is certainly evident in the grass and trees.

Here I am at the "front lawn".

Here is Ali and me at the front lawn.

 This is the abbey from the side. You can see some of the windows are still intact but the abbey really fell into a state of disrepair after being abandoned for so long. If you look below the windows you can see some of the buttresses that help hold the walls up.

 We decided first to go to the back of the abbey to see the big "windows" Here is the view from around back.

The Abbey has an excellent view of the land and is placed in a strategic position that overlooks much of the land. Built by Cistercians (a christian cult of monks), they received this land as a gift from the Pope. As the rulers, the Cistercians acted much like feudal lords collecting taxes from all the peasants of the land. With a lot of the taxes, they built this church to show off their power and as a place for worship.

That is the back (western view) of the Abbey. It is pretty impressive and without the roof, it is a really neat"skeleton".

Lorenzo, our history teacher is real good. He explains everything to us and the historical significance of everything. It is nice to talk to him about everything and hear the Italian point of view on a variety of things from world war 2 to pancakes.

 The sun came out just as we were looking at the west side of the abbey. With all the fields and rolling hills, you can see a long ways.

After hanging around and enjoying the view from the west side of the Abbey for a bit, we went into the Abbey. The sidewalk to the abbey, like many of the sidewalks in Europe, was very rough. Everything is just so old in Europe, if it doesn't really need to be replaced, they don't replace it. It is going to be different returning to the wide, flat, clean sidewalks and streets in America..... actually, there wont be many sidewalks in Carroll County.

 Even without a roof, I still got that same blown away feeling when entering the abbey. Its a really neat feeling and you still strangely felt like you needed to be quiet at first.

 It is crazy to have grass growing in the church. We saw some photos from the summer of this place and it is completely covered with a field of super green grass. Imagine mowing the grass inside of a church!

You can see areas where the arches that held the roof up have fallen. The gothic style of the columns being split into multiple columns was in the cathedrals in France as well, a reminder of how new the nations of today are in the grand scheme of history. It is interesting to compare the churches In different areas and from different eras after you have seen a few of them.

Some of the ceiling in the side aisles survived. Arched ceilings. I remember when I first got in Florence, one of the things I first realized was that all of the buildings had arched or vaulted ceilings because they are all just so old. You certainly don't see any square rooms in Florence or even in Venice and other old cities.

 Ali in the church. You can start to get a sense of how big this place was in this photo. The ceilings in all of these churches are just so high and as far as Cathedrals and churches in Europe go, this isn't really a huge one.

It is neat to see different layers of history in these old buildings. To the left in the corner of the room there is a doorway that has been bricked up obviously much later than the church was built. When these churches are "abandoned" for so long there will occasionally be times when they become temporarily inhabited by travelers, soldiers, or other people. When these people are there, there might be some alterations made to the church and when the people leave they may often take some "souvenirs" and these souvenirs could be small (a brick or hand of a statue) or quite large, (entire frescoes, stained glass windows, marble/ metal statues). This makes these places interesting records of history.

Even through all of those people and all that time, there are still some things that are original and very old. These little cubbies were used by the priest and he would put some of his stuff in the cubby to the left and the two little holes in the right cubby would be where vessels containing the blood of christ or holy water would be placed. You can even see traces of red paint on some of the bricks. The medieval and Ancient world was a very colorful place. Statues and buildings were often painted but most of the time the paint is gone.

Ali in the middle of the abbey. See those lights on the ground? In the summer, they hold operas here at night. That would be pretty neat to see.

You can see where the ceilings used to be vaulted but have since collapsed.

Looking down one of the side aisles.

This is the view of the rest of the church from standing at the front door. You can see some of my classmates way over there at the other end.

Looking up

It is neat to see on the top of all of the pillars there are different heads and designs carved on each one. This one is my favorite I think.

The inside of the church was really neat. Ali and I were glad we had our boots as there were muddy puddles of water all over the place. The abbey of San Galgano was quite a unique and interesting place. There weren't very many people there at all either, it is kind of out of the way for people and it isn't on any public transit lines. 

It's a little bit of a different view when the sun comes out.

This room was one of the few rooms at the church in San Galgano still mostly intact. In here there is a small tourist office and this used to be where the monks would work and copy manuscripts. There would be many monks copying the same book or different books by hand. It was hard work making books back then. The painting on the ceilings in this room is all original.

The side view of the abbey. The windows that are in better condition have neat gothic designs in them.

There were some plowed fields around since we are in farm country.

I noticed there were lots of bricks in the soil and I know in Florence they don't dig underground much for construction because every time they do, they hit ancient bricks and artifacts and there simply isn't enough money to deal with them. I asked Lorenzo about the bricks in the soil and he explained to me that whenever there are old bricks in the soil like that, it usually means that the soil is very fertile and perfect for growing the grapes for wine. I would have never guessed.

After visiting the Abbey, we had a pretty nice sit down lunch and then we rode the bus up to the house of San Galgano to see the sword in stone. We could have walked (it was just up the hill) but the bus was quicker. As you can see, San Galgano's house is pretty interesting. It was inspired by classical architecture and is very unique.

Above the door to go into San Galgano's house, there was the Medici crest that is seen all over Florence as a sign of the Medici wealth and power, Medici symbols appear on many paintings and buildings as a sign that they commissioned them. I asked Lorenzo why there was a medici seal all the way over here near Sienna and apparently, at the time of Medici, Florence invaded or controlled this territory and the Medici may have bought the house or something. Pretty neat.

Once inside, it was dimly lit with a tall ceiling that was fun to look up at.

The famed sword in stone was placed right in the middle and I must admit, it wasn't as impressive as I thought it would be, but it was still neat to see it. San Galgano was a knight and after fighting in some battles, he decided to come here. Here, he put his sword in this rock, abandoning material life to become a monk and live the life of a hermit atop a hill in this house. During his life as a monk he performed several miracles and shortly after his death, he was pronounced a saint. He was not a very celebrated saint however, because it wasn't long after he was proclaimed a saint that the crusades were starting up. The Pope certainly didn't want people embracing the message of putting the sword away to live a life in peace when he was trying to raise a massive army to crusade.

Looking up at the ceiling was fun.

In another room, we found these human arms. Legend has it that these are the arms of one of the three, "envious men" who while San Galgano was away, tried to take his sword out of the rock. They were unsuccessful however and they ended up breaking the sword. One of the mens arms were then torn off by a wolf that was one of San Galgano's "pets".

Looking out the door of the hermit house.

We spent awhile just looking around at the view. It is pretty neat to be able to see so far. It seems like all over Tuscany and many parts of the Italian countryside there are views like this all over the place. We hung out for awhile longer before heading back to Florence with the class.

On the way back to Florence, we stopped at this old Roman bridge that was on the side of the road. It is one of the many bridges crossing rivers on the road from Rome to Florence. It is pretty neat to think that many important people have probably crossed over this bridge so long ago.

Ali and I on top the bridge.

It was fun to play around in the river for a bit. If it was warmer, and the water much deeper, this bridge would make a killer swimming spot. The bridge was pretty high up.

The bus ride back to Florence was quiet and full of beautiful scenery. I know that one day I want to live in a city. Every time we go on trips like this, after we see what we came to see, I usually get a little bored and whenever we get back to the city it is always a good feeling for me. I like the high action and fast pace of everything. I think it would be fun to live in a city for a few years or until it gets old- Then I will want to go back to live in the country probably.