A brief history of the “Conventino”

"the Conventino has stood on this prow of stone withstanding earthquakes, wars, plagues and famine for at least twelve hundred years, and probably will outlive us all..."

The Conventino sits on a strategic spur, surrounded by mica-streaked rock, part of a prehistoric landscape estimated to be over 200 million years old, as one writer put it, ‘pocked like the skin of an ancient reptile’ and inhabited as early as 100,000 BC.

The early annals claim that this cube-like edifice was one of the most ancient Augustinian hermitages extant, possibly one of several erected between Perugia and the High Tiber valley during the Gothic invasions of the VIth century, and while this is difficult to ascertain, its mineral resources were vital to both the Etruscans and the Romans, its mine of native copper was legendary, and its quarries of green-streaked serpentine may have supplied decorative, porphyry-like columns for the monuments of nearby Arezzo.

The Conventino is important also because it occupies a critical position astride one of the most ancient transit routes in Italy, the Via Maremmana (established ca 1600 BC) travelled by the transhumance who would leave the desiccated plains of the Maremma for the high alpine pastures every year.

The Romans later built the Via Ariminensis from Arezzo to Rimini ca 267 BC, following this ancient thoroughfare and above these ancient tracks, mansiones or resthouses were established, often on promontories called Insulae or Islands above the swampy plains. These were lodging houses for the transhumance, and later for the Christian pilgrims and penitents who emanated from Asia and Palestine arriving at ports on the Adriatic coast to ply the Via Romea. The Conventino was one of these ancient lodging houses.

According to some ecclesiastical scholars, followers of St. Augustine may have come here as early as the IVth century, in emulation of the early Christian hermits like St. Anthony who fled to the ‘desert’ in Egypt. This dense thicket of juniper, giant heather and denuded rocks was called the ‘Deserta’ in the VIIth century and an Augustinian friar wrote in 1692 that St. Augustine’s belt had been found here at the Conventino, perhaps left here by an early devotee. The Conventino had links to other Siennese monasteries associated with St. Augustine but there is no absolute proof of this claim. Many relics were accumulated here according to seventeenth century manuscripts, proof of its importance on the pilgrimage route, and whether this tale is apocryphal or not, this and others convey the flavour of the Conventino’s tantalisingly long and mysterious history.

Perhaps because of its mineral wealth, the first edifice here was a shrine dedicated to the ancient goddess, Diana, huntress and patron of the sacred forest and the moon, and then to the Etruscan Uni or Juno, protectress of copper mines, and finally to the goddess Maia, in Greek mythology, the eldest of the Pleiades and one of the seven daughters of Zeus, and in Italy, a mountain goddess and harbinger of spring.

Local people say, however, that the Conventino was built by a beneficient ‘queen’, perhaps Teodolinda, a Longobard who reigned between 616-622 and inspired the naming of a place nearby, Sasso della Regina (‘the Queen’s stone’) or possibly by the great Countess Mathilda of Canossa. What is clear though is that early documents attest to an oracle and restoration of a shrine at this site in the Deserta” from the mid-VIIth century.

Several monasteries were already extant near Anghiari on the boundaries of territory controlled by ancient Chiusi, an important Etruscan hill town by 814. Guarding these fiefdoms, shrines and estates were mansionario’s or custodians appointed by the Church and the Emperor, and it is probable that the Conventino may have been the one described as ‘a military outpost, surrounded by extensive fishponds, and situated at an important crossing point (possibly because of its strategic position in affording access to the High Tiber valley at a time when many lowland areas were malarial marshlands) in the custody of a Longobard called Urso, appointed by Luitprando, the Longobard king in the early VIIIth century.

By 840, a small court or curticella called ‘ad Moionam’ or Moiona, in the possession of the mansionario, Urso, had been incorporated into the network of Augustinian hermit priests of Arezzo, with funds to employ bakers, a cook, laundryman and agricultural labourers from the coffers of the Holy Roman Empire. This edifice called Moiona remains under their aegis until the collapse of the Canonica in the Xth century.

An early chronicler suggests that Romualdo, founder of the monastic order called Camaldoli, ‘donated’ the Court of Mojona to the Camaldolese by 970 and sometime between then and 1023, restored a place he called Parthenone, perhaps inspired by the three-celled façade of the Conventino, an architectural style familiar from ruins of temples dedicated to the goddess Parthenis known as ‘the Scythian Diana’.

This was a retreat for “virgins seeking succour from the horrors of the forests and mountains” lest they be excluded, he wrote. A devout admirer of Mary Magdalene, San Romualdo may have dedicated this asceterio or ‘ascetics’ retreat’ to her as she was reputed to have lived out her last days ‘in a cave in a treeless desert’, a landscape not dissimilar to that of the original Monti Rognosi, the ‘scabrous’ hills of serpentine and the blood- red rock called gabbro, as it looked before the planting of pine forests in the 1930’s.

In 1002, the Saxon Emperor Otto III puts the mansio or ‘mansion’ of Sexta of Urso and his heirs under the Benedictine Abbey of Prateglia, situated to the north in Casentino. And in 1003, Bennis, son of the castaldo who had received the lease and right to administer many of the ancient monasteries under the Emperor and administered by Siena) is accorded a portion of the fiefdom which included the Conventino. (This name Bennis, retained by his heirs who also became ecclesiastics and priests in the churches within the Contea of Montauto then recurs over the next 600 years.)

In 1020, the family of Mathilda di Canossa accedes to the title and management of estates belonging to the Marchese or Marquis of Tuscany. These are retained for centuries and later passed on to the Bourbon del Monte on her death in 1115 and by 1027, Bishop Teodaldo from the same lineage establishes the Camaldolese order, incorporating the Longobard ‘church of San Salvator and the manso whose rights were retained by Urso Lanfredi (the original Urso who lived between 712-714) and his heirs. By 1042, this same place is called “St. Maria of Tuscia”, formerly part of the castle of Montaione, or Mount Juno, indicating its former character as a shrine dedicated to the goddess Uni, the Etruscan Juno.

In 1059, the court of Majona and other territories within Anghiari were still under the control of the priests of San Donato in Arezzo, and yet in 1082, the noble Raginerius of Galbino (who received the rights to the fiefdom from Bennis, son of the original castaldo and heir of Urso ca 1003) divides up the fortress and estates of the Fortis Marie between his four brothers.

By 1117, an envoy of the imperial court accords rights to the place later known as Fat’albecco, the colloquial name applied to the Conventino in the XIIIth century, to the priest of Anghiari. However, the Papal representative near Ravenna, in a wonderful handwritten parchment dated 1125, but harking back to the ancient Councils of Nicea and Chalcedon, decrees that the chapel of S. Mariae in Saxeto, once dedicated to Pope St. Leo the Great, and a ‘holy place’ restored in the IVth century, should be transferred to the jurisdiction of another ancient hermitage by the source of the River Tiber, once part of the huge chunk of territory called the Massa Verona and also incorporated within the Empire of the Camaldolese.

Arezzo falls in chaos and disputes break out in the mid XIIth century between the Swabian Emperor, Frederic Barbarossa and the Pope. As they intensify, rule over the ancient monasteries of Tuscia including Moiona is contested and the Pope places them under the rule of a monastery near Ravenna for a period of three decades.

Around 1180, the Emperor manages to restore his rights to these monasteries but Count Raniero of Galbino fearing death, confers the dam, forge, house and the tower to the Camaldolese monastery in 1187. But then, in 1196, a dispute ensues between the hermits and the Counts of Montauto and is only resolved by division of the domus, and its church with the hermits in 1206. In the meantime, the Tiber is moved away from Anghiari by 1197, and the strategic importance of the Conventino and its dam on a tributary of the Tiber wanes.

Throughout this phase, the the Conventino is referred to as the imperial possession of “Saxeto cum Moiona, but by 1207, the monastery of Moiona is suppressed.

Around 1223, the Pope Honorius III restores the ancient monastic houses of wandering priests and penitents in the north of Etruria, “the breadbasket” of the region, an area “inhabited by those who worked hard through these times of poverty’ and “frequented by “numerous families, paupers and pilgrims... seeking grace and sustenance” and the monastery continues to be called both the Mount of St. Maion and Fatalbecco.

Then around 1250, a group of hermits leave Ravenna led by a convert called Giovanni Buono and arrive at Sasseto to form his own Augustinian cell. After attacks in the Sovara valley, this enclave of hermits “from the antichissimo Convento di Sasseto” flee and according to oral tradition (attested in 1676) are reputed to have built a church to St. Augustine in Arezzo in 1256.

Fatalbecco still seems to be extant in 1289 and men living there still swear allegiance to the Camaldolese in 1311; however, soon after Anghiari is invaded and taken over by the Perugians. The plague strikes a decade later and by 1350, this area has become depopulated and the Conventino severely in debt. A delegation comes from a monastery in Lucca, however, in 1351, and transfers authority for the Conventino called the church of St. Maria Magdalene of Petra Clusine, or the ‘Stone of Chiusi’ to one of the original Longobard monasteries at Mount Amiato near Siena.

In 1403, the Counts of Montauto acquire rights to some land in Fatt’albecco, though its jurisdiction reverts to the Church and a few years later, the local priest inaugurates a public fair here at the time of the vendemmia, in celebration of the grape harvest, to ward off attacks from wild animals who might damage the precious vineyards and in commemoration of the beheading of St. John the Baptist.

After long wrangles with the civil authorities over its control, the Counts of Montauto acquire back the Conventino or Fatt’albecco by 1454, though in 1459, the ancient church and castrum (fortified place) called Maion (or Moiona) is formally suppressed.

The Black Death strikes here again in 1463, and the population is decimated but soon afterwards, in 1468, Piero, mansionario, a Marchese of the Counts of Montauto, restores the Conventino which is called this time, “La Sassetta” perhaps in gratitude for his salvation, decorates the altar and provides a small subsidy to the hermits so that daily mass can be celebrated there regularly. (See map of ancient Augustinian monasteries attached). Meanwhile, in 1478 the dam or Chiusure at Sasseto below the Conventino is still cited probably because it is still a critical crossing point for flocks moving from the Via Maremmana across the Tiber up to the alpine pastures.

In 1507, the ascetics’ refuge dedicated to S. Maria Magdalenae, both hermitage and Parthenone is still extant and in 1520, Fr. Basilius Monaldi is appointed rector as six Augustinian nuns arrive here. By 1528, it is deserted, however, and local testimonies suggest that men from the nearby church at Ponte alla Piera take refuge in the Conventino.

In a document from 1610, titular ownership of land belonging to the Conventino is ascribed in the census to the Fabale, ‘white monks’ or Cistercians, who originated in the Adriatic coast. Were these the original owners? These hermits were connected to others living by the Tyrrenian sea, and would have had links with the other rest houses accommodating the pilgrims and penitents who travelled the Via Romea across Italy. In addition, the estates were also in the possession of a famous Count from Pavia in Lombardy.

In 1626, the Vicar of the Augustinian order near Siena transfers rights to the Fortress of the Albinae or Galbina at Sassetta and by 1642, the Conventino is revived, only to be suppressed again in 1659. By 1692, the decrepit state of the Conventino, is rectified by the Augustinian Prior, Fabbroni who receives financial support from the Counts and a dedicated Marchese Elisabetta, until it is finally suppressed in 1786. The Conventino is then leased out to local farmers who lived here paying tithes to the Church for more than two hundred years.

A bomb crashes through the chapel roof in 1943 as troops flee the strategic stronghold of the Conventino but local farming families continued to regard it as a refuge, fleeing the threat of aerial attack. It is left abandoned in the 1970’s as Italians migrate to the cities, and is restored in 2000-2001.

The walls of the Conventino are over 60 centimetres thick, the structure dates from the VIIIth-XIth century, and the original siepe viva or living hedge of boxwood still surrounds its small court or ‘curticella’ as described in the document dated 840 AD. On the external wall is a keystone with the ancient crest of the Albani or Galbina family, a thick horizontal band within a simple shield. Was this the original structure? Or did these counts build this magnificent structure on the ruins of a shrine and colony of Juno, the “Colonia Juniones”, a site known to have been established by Julius Caesar to the northeast of Arezzo?

The chronicler of Anghiari asserts that Gallo Galbino was granted jurisdiction over these areas by Charlemagne. However, until we excavate the megalithic walls and subterranean rooms under the Conventino, we shall not be absolutely sure of its ancient history, though a former Roman presence here is undeniable. Of one thing, we are certain, though: the Conventino has stood on this prow of stone withstanding earthquakes, wars, plagues and famine for at least twelve hundred years, and probably will outlive us all.

Elizabeth Wickett