© Photo: Andrea Barghi

A hamlet already existed here when St Francis arrived, near the old castle of the Counts Catani, mentioned in historical documents dating from the late 10th century. Monte della Verna was then called Clusa, which also explains the name of the village, as it 'closed' and controlled the passage between the Casentino and the Tiber Valley. A short distance away from this settlement, of which a few picturesque ruins remain, are other interesting old buildings: the Church of San Michele Arcangelo and the Palazzo della Podesteria. Among the various podestas who succeeded one another here should be mentioned Ludovico Buonarroti, father of Michelangelo, who according to tradition was baptised in the little church of nearby Vezzano.

In the town, with its houses and hotels typical of the summer resorts of the early 20th century, is a lovely fountain from the 1930s, built to celebrate the completion of an aqueduct that put an end to the lack of water that had always dogged the zone.

On the national road to Bibbiena is the tiny village of La Beccia, from which we advise travellers to make the climb to the Sanctuary on foot. A paved road, the same one St Francis used when he went up the mountain, with interspersed houses and outcropping rocks, comes to the great door that marks the entrance to the holy place, confirmed by an inscription which is almost a warning to visitors: "Non est in toto sanctior mons".

As a prelude to the profound mysticism that characterises the religious complex, along the path one encounters a few noteworthy features that take us back to a more popular, ordinary dimension: the Cappella degli Uccelli, in memory of the miraculous welcome that the birds reserved for Francis, and the friars' old botanical gardens.

Proceeding from Chiusi towards Badia Prataglia, we unexpectedly find ourselves in an unusual landscape for the Casentino, Vallesanta, where the woods give way to meadows and land formations similar to erosion furrows.

back