History & Art

ABBEY OF SANT'ANTIMO

One of the most important European"roads of the faith"passed through the hills and cypresses of Val d'Orcia. In the middle ages extraordinarily fascinating churches and abbeys were built around this road.

It is impossible to understand the flourishing of religious monuments in Val d'Orcia without considering the Via Francigena and the illustrious people who travelled

A tradition unconfirmed by historians would have it that Charlemagne, between 774 and 781, received from pope Hadrian I the relics of St. Sebastian and Sant'Antimo and founded, in their honour, one of the most important monasteries in Tuscany. Though the king of the Franks (and later emperor) did not stop off in Val d'Orcia, it is certain that the abbey of Sant'Antimo was already officiated in 814.

Its forms, which recall those of the great French Romanesque churches, are further testimony of the influence exerted by the road on these hills.

THE COLLEGIATE CHURCH OF SAN QUIRICO

Built in Romanesque style on the remains of an ancient parish church the Collegiate Church has three external portals, each one different in style and conformation.

The first, designed in accordance with the canons of Romanesque architecture, is in sandstone and travertine; the second, built in 1288, has sculptures of considerable artistic interest, while the style of the third is between Romanesque and Gothic.

On one side of the church there are two deep two-light windows, one bearing the figure of a small caryatid with a disturbing grimace. In the wooden choir you can admire the carving executed between 1482 and 1502 by Antonio Barili for the Duomo of Siena and subsequently purchased by the Chigi family. Sano di Pietro's splendid poliptych is in a wing of the transept.

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