Imagine Tuscany. Only talking about these lands makes me dream of colours, perfumes and stories as evoked by a real painting. If we link this thought to the passion for history, we jump into a mysterious story.
Italy has many enigmatic places but this one is in the top ten list of them. A valley between the hillsides with an ancient abbey, abandoned since centuries. The scenery looks like a movie one. The naves are still standing but the roof in no more. We are in front of a relict of a huge structure in the middle of nowhere.
Now we must go back a thousand years to arrive to the obscure origin of this story. An era of uncrowded lands, an era of errant knights. One of this person is the heart of this story. A knight that during his lifetime has made all the bad things he could have done and that for sure was not living his life according to Christian rules. One day, however, he was dazzled by the repentance and he decided to end his life like a hermit.
I can imagine that day, a repentant knight that, with his sword at his belt wanders around the lands of Tuscany till he reach that hillside, he clumber up to the top of it, he draw his sword and with brute force he thrust it in the stone.
Yes, right, it was the Xmas of the year 1180, when Galgano climbed up the hill of Montesiepi and he thrust the sword. From that day, the sword remained silent in that hermitage.
Few years later the monks built up the abbey that is just down the small hillside. An abbey that went through the centuries till it went completely to the dog, already hundreds of years ago. Today only the disquieting deconsecrated skeleton remains to remember the ancient vestiges.
Looking the Galgano’s sword or better the sword in the stone many thoughts come to my mind, suggestions and questions. Scientific researches tend to confirm the authenticity of that sword. will the legend of king Arthur derive from this sword? There is no answer but circumstantial evidences would say yes.
Getting down that hill in a dark evening of the beginning of the year leave a strange feeling of unknown and incredulity. A story born almost a millennium ago when here there was no more than land and woods.
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