Grand Tour

Some people had always shown a keen interest in the monasteries, especially those of Vallombrosa and Camaldoli. Absent from the usual agendas, they were initially destinations favored by naturalists and pilgrims. But in the Romantic age of vedutismo, their isolated locations immersed in nature, as Castellan reminds us (1804), made them popular places with landscape painters. The fascination of their sites, in any case, had been perceived over time by many distinguished visitors, and art, whether of the word or the image, had always been used to capture it. In fact it was Milton, in 1639, who inaugurated the custom of making an excursion to the monastery in Vallombrosa, whose dense vegetation would serve him as a model for the description of Paradise (Brilli, 1993). The monastery attracted other great poets (Ariosto and Lamartine) and artists (Cellini), who visited it and sang its praises in their own way.

As early as 1699 Deseine presented a fairly thorough picture of them, relying on the authority of Father Mabillon (1685) and declaring that both monasteries aroused at least as much devotion and curiosity as the Grande Chartreuse at Grenoble. The comparison occurred to A. C. Valéry as well (1828), although he called Vallombrosa «a Chartreuse of the Apennines, less rugged than that of the Alps, with the sky of Italy and a view of the sea.». The church of the monastery, founded by the monk St. John Gualberto in the 11th century, housed the relics of its founder although not his body, along with the tip of one of the nails used in the crucifixion, Deseine tells us, while Valéry appreciated the «rare and ornate book of lovely engravings» devoted to the founder’s life. The humble dwellings of the monks of the order dotted the surrounding hills. The fact that access was forbidden to women, except on special occasions and at a proper distance (a rule that applied to both monasteries) was a curiosity noted by many. Valéry, who gave a fairly detailed description of the place, also cited the famous scagliola mosaics and Father Hugford, rector of the hermitage called Il Paradisino located above the monastery, as the best artist in the genre.

Founded by St. Romuald, Camaldoli housed a community of monks who dressed in loose white robes and grew their beards long, while maintaining a strict rule of silence. The church possessed highly regarded paintings by Vasari, but there were also a library and pharmacy of great value.

Less often visited, given its inaccessible location on a barren mountain in the Apennines, was the monastery that owed its fame to the fact that it was the place where St. Francis received the stigmata. In the Romantic era it was to become a favorite destination, the place of the sublime for Forsyth (1802), where the terrible side of nature held sway, revealing its majestic and awesome aspect and inducing a shiver of fear, but also one of veneration for its arcane secrets: «a rocky mountain, a ruin of the elements, broken, sawn, and piled in sublime confusion – precipices crowned with old, gloomy visionary woods – black chasm in the rock where curiosity shudders to look down – haunted caverns sanctified by miraculous crosses – long excavated stairs that restore you to day-light».

In the vicinity of the monasteries, secluded and solitary, the presence of man had left its mark on nature. The labor the monks had put into leveling, tilling and irrigating the ground had rendered cultivable a large area of land, making it look less grim and mysterious (Castellan, 1804). The concrete and active side of the monks’ presence acted as a counterpart to the enigmatic appeal of the monastery. The traveler, pilgrim and mendicant could find shelter with the monks, especially in winter, and the indigent clothing, food and money to continue their journey.