
The church and monastery complex of San Vivaldo
The church and monastery complex of San Vivaldo as it appears to us today is almost contemporary with the construction of the pilgrimage chapels. The church, a simple structure with a single nave, as befits Franciscan taste, was built on top of an older structure that was superimposed on even earlier buildings, including, perhaps, a thirteenth-century hermitage.
Inside, the Chapel of St Vivaldo has a glazed terracotta altarpiece attributed to Benedetto Buglioni which depicts The Adoration of the Christ Child with St Vivaldo and St Catherine of Alexandria. Below the altarpiece, the statue of St Vivaldo conceals the relics of the saint, preserved in a fifteenth-century urn. This chapel is located in precisely the same place as the chestnut tree, in whose trunk, according to tradition, the hermit Vivaldo lived in solitude, and who was found dead there by a hunter on 1 May 1320.
The church provides access to an internal chapel that houses a Pietà attributed to Agnolo di Polo – one of the most beautiful sculptural groups in the complex – and to the chapel of St Francis, with an altar dedicated to the saint. The monastery, still home to Franciscan friars, is particularly noteworthy for its large cloister, whose arches are now walled up, and for the long refectory, which features a fine Della Robbia coat of arms.













