The village origin is strictly related to the presence of the powerful Abbey of San Salvatore, of which, not by chance, it still carries the name. Today Abbadia represents “the capital town of the Amiata” because it is the main access door to the woods on the top of the mountain and to the ski-runs.
Nowadays wanderers, walking around in the old town of Abbadia, can enjoy a wonderful view of the silent and quiet little square, as well as admire houses built of trachyte, a dark volcanic stone. Visitors can feel as if they were loosig their own way within the labyrinth of the city. Outside the oldest part of the village, rises the church of the Madonna dei Remedi, dating back to 17th century, and the 16th century church of the Madonna del Castagno.
Archaeology has confirmed that the presence of the Via Francigena and of the powerful abbey of San Salvatore is the reason of the development of the Amiata’s area since the 8th century. During the period of the Langobard dominion, the eastern part of the mount Amiata probably belonged to one of the dukedoms of Southern Italy. The first document about the Abbey dates back to the year 770, even if the building of the monastry seems to have been built 30 years before by the Langobard king Rachis. He also promoted the foundation of several abbeys to honour the power of Pope Gregory III. Other documents inform us that the abbey was know and in activity by the arrival of Charlemagne.
ABBEY OF SAN SALVATORE
Today the monastery shows a façade with two lateral bell towers, one of which incomplete. The portal has a round arch and inside there is only a nave, bounded by strong perimeter walls of trachyte.A restoration campaign happened in 1960s. The chapels are disposed to build a sort of cross, with the right chapel painted with frescos by the Nasinis, Mannerist painters of the 17th century, who represented religious scenes, among which the legend of the Abbey foundation. The last but not least, the Christus Triumphans, a wooden sculpture of an unknown artist but extremely which probably belongs to the 13th century.the crypt is similar to an ancient temple with Greek-cross plan, with 36 columns, among which 25 original; and till now object of study of a very careful analysis. On this extraordinary crypt the Abbot Winnizzone built in 1035 the present church of San Salvatore, which since then has represented the place of worship of the entire abbey complex.
HISTORY
the monastery was born at the beginning of the 8th century (for many historians in the year 743) thanks to the Benedictine monks, who made it powerful and a central point within the Langobard reign and, lately, for the Sacred Roman Empire, that in Tuscany controlled the possessions fro two strategic points, the stronghold of Lucca and, precisely, Abbadia, in contrast with the powerful presence of the Pope in Sovana.the Abbey could be taken as a model of proto-Romanesque style for other buildings.The Abbey of San Salvatore had also a very prestigious political and economic power; the Benedictines were the first to increase the importance of the monastery, probably even thanks to their religious rule, according to which prayer and spiritual meditation should be accompanied by work.The Benedictines, an order from which all the others derived, had the merit of creating the first hospitals to cure the ill people and only thanks to them the ancient Latin and Greek codices were not lost but reproduce in several copies in manuscripts by the amanuenses, till the invention of printing.The propriety of the monks did not consists in a regular unity of territories but it was divided into many fields. To administrate and manage such an heritage was quite difficult and problematic. The main seat and most extended nucleus of propriety was on the foot of the Mount Amiata but there were also many other possessions. To make the management of such a wide territory easier the monastery created some local seats, that is small monasteries, which took the name of cellae, .with a monk as a guide, together with other minor monks who helped him in cultivating the land. Its name was very well know also beyond the Tuscan boundaries, arriving till Germany, to its royal courts and into the local monasteries. Study was very important for the monks so, at the beginning of 12th century the Archbishop of Magdeburg sent to Abbadia San Salvatore 20 among its best students to improve in the sacred studies. The Abbey is also faomous for the stop that Charlemagne made there. In late Autumn of the year 800 he descended to Italy to be crowned by the Pope Leone III in his attempt of restoring the glorious Roman Empire. Charlemagne of course wandered along the Via Franchigena. Here he was fascinated by the high skyline of the Mount Amiata and, after leaving his army in the area of Callemala, he climbed up the slope and asked for the hospitality of the monks of the Abbey, where he was treated with an extraordinary welcome. The memory of the visit of this important figure is still alive among the people of the mountain; e.g. the vox populi links the etymology of the so called Caroline Herb, a local plant with prodigious healing properties, to the fact that this herb, according to the legends, cured many of the soldiers of Charles who were camping along the Via Franchigena and who had fallen hill with a terrible pest epidemics. The extension of the Abbey’s propriety, with the imposition of heavy taxes, debited on the farmers, caused some contrasts with the Aldobrandeschi. The farmers who lived in the land of the Abbey sometimes threatened an alliance with the Aldobrandeschi, other times looked for protections outside the Abbey, with some contrasts and consequently problems for the Abbey.But the decay of the beginning of the 13th century had also other causes, apparently more mundane than economic and political. The severe habits of the Benedictine order were step by step abandoned from a great part of the 150/200 monks of the monastery. Prostitutes were introduced into the monastery without restraint and the corruption of the ones who should have supervised allowed such behaviours;In 1229 with a Papal Bull Gregory IX declared that it was the Pope’s duty to eliminate any form of corruption within the church and he closed the Abbey of Abbadia, forcing the monks to leave it and to be transferred. There were as well contrast and misunderstandings between the monks and the inhabitants of the village of Castel di Badie, which had always been under the control of the monastery. The villagers especially refused to pay the tithes. There was an attempt by the Abbot Rocca, at the end of the 16th century, of re-establishing a certain economic availability for the monastery, by the recovery of the tithes which had been lately no more regularly collected. The suppression of the abbey took place in 1872 by the Granducato di Toscana and the Grand duke family brought away many of the furniture and documents possessed by the abbey, such as the precious Codex Amiatinus, to move them to the Laurenziana Library in Florence.
THE MINE’S MUSEUM
The building with the Clock Tower represents the symbol of the recovery of the past. In this building has been mounted the Mining Museum, to remember a period lasted about one century during which the mercury production has represented an economic resource of the whole Amiata’s territory, with all the social contradiction it has caused.The Mining Park Museum, founded in the year 2000, belongs to the Siena’s Museum System and it is localized in the mining area of Abbadia San Salvatore. The collections include minerals, tools, documents, objects and pictures concerning the cinnabar’s extraction as well as the mercury distillation.There is an ambitious project aiming to the recovery of the whole Amiata’s mining area and the opening both of a documentary museum in the ex mechanic workshop and of the tunnel with the pit San Callisto.
