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Slow Tuscany
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> San Vivaldo - The Jerusalem of the Tuscan Hills
San
Vivaldo: a "Jerusalem" in the Tuscan hills
Damiano
Andreini
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One
of the most beautiful country itineraries, in the Elsa Valley
(the heart of Tuscany), will take you straight to... Jerusalem:
Around the end of the fourteen hundreds, in the forests of these
hills there was an old church built in memory of a hermit monk
whose name was Vivaldo. Vivaldo lived about one hundred years
before the church was built and the people said that he lived
in a small cellar made from the trunk of a chestnut tree.
In the fifteen hundreds, the church was almost in ruins so the
Franciscan monks started the restoration process. They didn't
limit the project to just the restoration of the church but
they mobilized the enthusiasm of the local population and enclosed
the church in an ambitious project which was to transform the
hill and the forest of San Vivaldo into a small copy of Jerusalem
for the pilgrimage of the faithful.
I'd like to remind you that we are in the Elsa Valley, an area
that in that time was crossed every year by hundreds of pilgrims
that were going in the direction of Rome. The idea to construct
a Jerusalem in Tuscany was decided upon by a cultured Franciscan
of Florence whose name was Tommaso. He lived in Palestine for
many years so he knew the buildings and the famous places of
the Holy City very well.
In a few years, in the forest around the small church, over
thirty small chapels
were built. They were faithful reproductions of the places in
Jerusalem
which had accompanied the last events of the life of Jesus Christ.
Such as: the Holy Sepulchre, the Mount of Affliction, Pilate's
House, and Mount Zion. Today there are just twenty of these
many chapels remaining and in every one of them there are large,
painted terra cotta statues that represent a particular event
of Jesus' life.
They range from the Last Supper to the Capture, and from the
Crucifixion to the Resurrection. The illusion is not over yet.
In fact before the construction of the chapel, the hill terrain
of Saint Vivaldo was skilfully modelled to resemble Jerusalem's
topography exactly. Recently someone placed both maps together
and realized that they were in fact, identical! The effect in
the silence of that forest is incredible.
As soon as you enter inside the chapel you will have the feeling
that the event is about to happen. This was, without a doubt,
the objective of Tommaso the monk, the creator of the entire
project. He wanted to set the pilgrim down into an impressive
theatrical representation of the holy writings.
Damiano Andreini |
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