Abbey of San Bartolomeo of Cantignano

CONTACTS

ADDRESS: via Stipeti, loc. Coselli

TEL + 39 328 0108664

E-MAIL: premiocarlopiaggia@gmail.com

APP & WEB SOLUTION: badiadicantignano.it

A long history, like that of the city and which, like it, has preserved within its walls the memory of all its glorious past, from Roman times to the present day.
The name of the town is in fact of Roman origin and derives from the Latin noble Cantinius, the Roman colonist who was assigned the lands of present-day Cantignano, where it appears there was also a spa complex.
From that period remain a black and white mosaic walled above the door of the left transept of the church, a tombstone now preserved in the National Museum of Villa Guinigi in Lucca and various other finds and fragments including the lower walls of the current church, and remains of the Roman aqueduct.

New excavations have brought to light the remains of a religious building dating back to the 5th and 6th centuries, and although it has been renovated several times, numerous traces of its early medieval foundation are still evident, especially inside.

The first church and monastery were built by Benedictine monks from Bobbio in the 7th and 8th centuries. The base sections of the apse and left transept walls, in opus spicatum, date to this period, along with other less valuable fragments. The name Badia (Badia), which it took, and many interior ornaments, including the figures of a Lombard king and queen painted on the pillars of the high altar, confirm that it was a Benedictine abbey, and it remained so until the early 12th century, when it was placed under the Camaldolese rule by order of the bishop of Lucca, Rangerio.

The church was rebuilt by the Camaldoli monks after a period of decline due in part to the disastrous wars between Pisa and Lucca, right in the Vorno valley, around the “castellaccio” in the immediate vicinity of the monastery.

A third monastery, still existing today, known as the “palace of a hundred windows” was also built by the Camaldolese in 1455.

In the 18th century, a final intervention significantly modified the building, setting back the new façade and adding a portico of at least seven meters. The interior was also remodeled at the same time, but was later dismantled during a restoration in the 1960s. Inside, a panel by Agostino Marti depicting the Madonna Enthroned between Saints Bartholomew and Martin, painted by the painter in 1516 on commission from the Gigli family, is preserved; the predella depicts the Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew, the Lamentation over the Dead Christ, and the Almsgiving of Saint Martin.

Today, the Badia church is a small Latin cross-shaped building, with an apse and portico, protected by a mighty modern bell tower.
The volume stands out against the backdrop of a large meadow, a former vegetable garden of the Badia, and with the Vorno hills at the foot of Monte Pisano in the background.

Itinera Romanica (Romanesque itineraries)

Today the church is an important stop on one of the many Romanesque itineraries that characterize the Upper Tyrrhenian area, between Italy and France.

Nature, historical, and cultural itineraries that pass through small hilltop villages and rural areas along paths and ancient trails, where you encounter minor religious architecture to be rediscovered and enhanced, such as churches, basilicas, parish churches, and chapels.

A Benedictine abbey complex existed around the church from the second half of the 11th century.

The ecclesiastical building is the only vestige of the original layout. At the beginning of the 12th century, the monastery and church of San Salvatore di Cantignano were granted to the Camaldolese Monastic Order, which held it until the early 15th century. The monks carried out major renovations and expansions. From 1401, Abbot Bartolomeo initiated major restoration work on the convent, church, houses, and other buildings in the architectural complex. The church has a Latin cross plan, a single nave, and a semicircular apse, the result of 12th-century renovations.

Traces of the previous buildings—the church and the monastery—can be seen both under the presbytery, where fragments of the ancient pillars from a more ancient period can be found, and in some sections of wall frescoes with geometric and plant designs in the apse and along the nave of the church, discovered during archaeological excavations carried out in 1965.

The apse, the north perimeter facade and the transept are the parts of the building in which it is still possible to identify architectural features linked to the Romanesque style.