San Vivaldo is a convent located in the homonymous hamlet of the municipality of Montaione, in the province of Florence, included in the territory of the diocese of Volterra. It is famous above all for about twenty chapels arranged around it that make up a sacred mountain, the only one of its kind in Tuscany, built since the 16th century by mostly Florentine artists.
The Sacro Monte di San Vivaldo in Tuscany, is one of the sacred mountains widespread in northern Italy that were built between 1500 and 1600, whose origins date back between 1185 and 1280, when the area was in possession of the Friars of the Cross of Normandy is disputed between Castelfiorentino and San Miniato.
When the Franciscans entered the ancient church of Camporena, the place was already a place of worship, linked to the figure of Vivaldo Stricchi, the hermit saint whose veneration spread when his body was found in miraculous circumstances in the chestnut hollow he had used as a dwelling in life.
In 1325, on the place where he died, a chapel was built in his name, then a hermitage, until the construction in 1355 of the church which can still be admired today. On May 1, 1500, following the settlement of the Franciscan Friars Minor, a series of churches and chapels began to be built which reproduced the topography and holy places of Jerusalem. Hence the name "Jerusalem of Tuscany".
The conception of the Sacro Monte is due to the Franciscan friars, who at that time used to make many pilgrimages to the holy land, and in particular to Fra Tommaso da Firenze and Fra Cherubino Conzi, who built the convent first and then about 25 chapels, also helped by the inhabitants of the place who transported the stones necessary for the construction from the bottom of the Egola river.
The purpose of the construction of the chapels was to offer the population the opportunity to make a pilgrimage without going to Jerusalem which at that time fell under Turkish rule and without excessive expenditure of money. In fact, in a bull of Pope Leo X (of the Medici family), there is the recognition of the chapels and the granting of an indulgence to those who would go there to pray.
Convent of San Vivaldo
Address: Via Hecce Homo, 12, 50050, Loc. San Vivaldo
Phone: 0571 699267
Site:
http://www.sanvivaldointoscana.com/Location inserted by
Culturalword Abco