The thousand misteries of San Galgano

A sword slipped in the rock that gets out of the floor of a Romanesque building. A Virgin Mary with three hands and, in front of her, an Annunciation almost heretical. Two arms coming from the Twelfth century. A immense cathedral unroofed and that stands solemnly in the nothing. An enigmatic and unknown saint, but that, although this, had one of the fastest canonizations in the whool Church history.

One, hundred, thousand misteries that superimposes one upon another, that gathers here, in San Galgano in the green desolation of this magic corner of Tuscany. Really here, in the Merse Valley, south to Siena, we have the sensation of beeing in front of a door that opens wide on an other world, on the last and definive mistery. The air that here we breath has no equal, and reminds, in case, places far from here, as Stonehenge or the Egyptian Piramids. Or Mont Saint-Michel, in the French side of the Channel, a name connected to the terrifyng warlike figure of the archangel Michael, to whom in the Middle Age were dedicated important sanctuaries, as that on the massif of Gargano, in Apulia, or the “Sacra” in the Susa Valley, in Piedmont. As to him were entitled the western buildings, placed in the darknest Middle Age to defend the great Romanesque and pre-Romanesque cathedrals from the Devil. A figure, really important, the archangel Michael, then, connected to a misterious and secret sect of knights with his name to which  Galgano belonged. Galgano was born in the nearby Chiusdino and comes here, in the hill of Montesiepi, towards the 1180, to build, even if unwillingly, the round construction that he have seen in dream.

Here Galgano ritires with his first companions to lead a hermit’s life. Witness told that he sleeped on the bare earth, wore only a miserable wool mantle and ate only raw vegetables and water. In the same year, in December 22nd, the saint, slipped his sword in the rock to transform it in a cross, a choice, appreciated by God, that make it impossible to take out. It is a choice of peace, the refusal of the violence that the sword represents. But it is also an upsetting event for the mentality of the age that underminse the basis of the power. A knight that refuse to fight with his sword is a man that reverses the values of the society.

That explains, perhaps, the unusuall hurry used to sanctify this personage, that died in the 30rd Novembre of 1181, less than a year later, and that became saint only five years later. As if the hierarchy was in a harry to “normalize” the veneration for a figure that surely had a large following although his life was not too particular and he did not make miracles too clamorous. The proceeding of the trial of canonization, in which Dionysia, the mother of Galgano testified, emphasizes especially on the fact that the knight Galgano obeys to God’s will with a lot ofhesitation, even unwillingly. In a period of heresies that increased and menaced the basis of the society and the ecclesiastical hierarchy, as the sect of Catharists, it was better be prudents. So the movement founded by Galgano, the man who invited the believers to pray in front of his sward with the shape of a cross to ask recoveries, without the Church as intermediate, is included again in the order under the established authority. Exactly the same will happen, some decades after, to the followers of an other bothersome man, Francesco of Assisi, also sanctified in a time unusualy short.

The operation is successfull. Only few years later, the old camponians of Galgano will be obliged to go away and leave the place to the Cistercian monks, which rule they do not want observe. In the meantime, the round building, the “Rotonda”, was completed and the little church was visitated by important personages that came here to pay homage to Galgano’s tomb. In 1185 even an Emperor: Frederic Barbarossa.

In 1218 the building has become already too little to contain all the the believers. So, they decide the construction of the new great Cistercian monastery, near the hill of the “Rotonda”. The new building, thanks to popes’ and emperors’ protection, reached, in short time, great power and richness. Instigating the appetites of the next city of Siena, against which the monastery was obliged to fight harshly, in the sixteenth century, calling the help of the warrior pope Giulio II that launched the interdict against the city of the Palio.

A long period of decadence followed the time of splendour. The immense gothic building with his monastery, went to ruin and became a stone quarry for the inhabitans of this place. They arrived to sell the lead plates that covered the roof, causing the collapse of it. Today, the great cathedral, that rise isolated, with no flooring and the roof, but only with its imposing walls emanates an incredible fascination, a palpable sensation of magic and mistery.

Unhappy, vicissitudes that looks like those concerning the body of Galgano. His head was found prodigiously intact and that is way it became a venerable object and preserved in a precious reliquary of the fourteenth century. Nevertheless, as time passed, the saint was almost forgotten, and the Cistercians even transformed him in a monk of their order. His head end up in Siena, of which was a patron. And in a little church in the outskirts, known with the significative name of “chiesa del Santuccio” (“church of the little Saint”). Really, a very little decorous end for a saint once so famous!

In 1977, the “sacred head” has come back, as we can say, “at home”. Actually it is reduced to the only skull, with the hair and it is consrved in the parish  church of Chiusdino, dedicated to the archangel Michael. We don’t know where the rest of the body, finished in an other reliquary, was going to end.

On the contrary, the fascination of the little round Romanesque church that lies on the top of hill of Monte Siepi remains. A bear church, decorated only with white and reddish fillets, and in which we can enter by a little atrium built only few decades later. Near the middle of the stone floor, you can see the Galgano’s sword, stuck in the rock. The usual tourists, perhaps with their children with them, normally say: “The sword of King Arthur!”. Persuaded, maybe, to be in presence of  a Disney’s cartoon. But something doesn’t seem right. Not only because, after all, drinks and pop corn are absent. Or the advertisements.

The interior, on the contrary, is essential, poor, with those concentrical circles that are the only decoration. Twelve circles: the number of the divinity that shed itself in the world; the number three represents the Trinity; four are the corners of the world, the sides of the celestial Jerusalem descripted in the Apocalypse, the Evangelists, and so on. Numbers and geometry, a knowledge the we have today lost, but that the men of Middle Ages understood immediately. And then the circle, symbol fo God and eternity, the windows with astronomical meanings.

All this would be sufficient to disorientate an attentive visitor. But there is more. A personage that slip his sword in the rock as a symbol of his refusal of violence, is a King Arthur on the opposite. Even if the name Galgano calls really to mind the name of Galvano, one the Knights of the Round Table. Only a coincidence? Note that Chretiens de Troyes, the great French writer that created the myth of the Graal, died in 1191 and the most important part of his works (as the “Perceval ou le conte du Graal”) were written olnly after the death of Galgano. What kind of relations were between the two personages, if a relation existed? An other mistery that resounds among these stones. If exist a place worthy to preserve the calix with Christ’s blood (or all the others shapes in which the Graal was represented), that is San Galgano on the Monte Siepi. A site that was, perhaps, dedicated to some cult, long time before the coming of the Saint, as we can deduce from some tracks in the canonization trial. Why, in fact, Galgano goes exactly to this little hill the he have seen in a dream and that, as his mother said, “It is unattainable. How will we reach it?”. Furthermore, Galgano arrive to Monte Siepi taken by a horse got out of control and obliged by an order of  the archangel Michael. And what about the ridicolous explanation given by his mother, that is that the saint slipped his sword in the rock to pray, because he was not able to make a wooden cross. Is it possible that a knight, a young man in full possession of his strength, is not able to cut off two branches and make a cross with them? All this il really strange, as stranges are the vicisittudes of Galgano and this place. The mistery become complicated.

Let's pass, then, through the door that opens on the left and enter the rectangular chapel added about in the year 1340. Once, the frescos cycle assigned to Ambrogio Lorenzetti, probably covered all the walls of the internal. Unfortunately, only fourty years ago the surviving fragments were restored. But the paintings that remain have surprising aspects. First of all, the window is surrounded by a delicate Annunciation, in which the Virgin Mary, with the arms crossed on one’s breast, appears almost to bow to the archangel Gabriel send by God. But the sinopite (the preparatory design) that was discovered under painting and put on the right wall, show us that Lorenzetti, at the beginning had a different project. The Virgin appears here frightened, almost thrown to the ground by the unexpected appearance of the Archangel. This is a kind of  representatione extremely rare in the history of art. Why the artist choose a subject so unusual and dramatic and why did not realize it?

The strengeness don’t terminate here. On an other wall there is a great fresco that represents the “Maestà” (the “Majesty”), a typical subject at that time with Our Lady sit on the throne surrounded by the saints and the celestial court. If you observe the painting, you note that the Vierge with one hand hold the sceptre and with other two hands hold the Child. In short, Mary has got three hands! To tell the truth, Ambrogio Lorenzetti, in a first time, painted the Virgin without the Child and only afterwards, maybe because this subject was considered inopportune, he added the little Jesus with the hand that hold him. The sceptre was so hidden between the folds of the cloack and only a recent restoration has permitted it to appear again. Also the crown that wreathe the head, was hidden under the cloack. Why a famous artist as the Lorenzetti represented  with consciousness an unusual scheme and then retraced his steps?

And what about the strange mythological references, even pagans, that we can observe in the other personages of the painting? Starting from the image of Eve that lies at the footh of the throne, with those symbols the remind us fertility, as the ram’s fleece, the fig, the serpent? We must admit it! Even the standardized paintings of the fourteenth century, here, in San Galgano, are able to reassure us.

A legend says that one day, Galgano had to absent himself from Montesiepi to reach de Pope. During his absence, three bad men hurl themselves at the sword and destroyed it. Fortunately, thanks to God, Galgano was able to repair it. The malefactors had not the time to boast of  their deed. One of them was struck by lightning in a storm, an other was drowned. The third, the one who bracked the sword, was attacked by a wolf that tore him off both the arms. Only a legend. But in the chapel two arms are exposed in a reliquary. The tradition assert that they belonged to the sacrilegious destroyer. A few years ago they were scientifically dated: and, strangely, they would date to Galgano’s years!

The sword slipped in the pavement of the church is really the original? Recent metallographic analysis have not completely dispelled the doubt. The material is however perfectly compatible with the medieval origin of the sword.

The doubt, the mistery remains. And crowded round this strange symbol of war became an obcject of peace, drove in the rock. So, it points one side against the heart of the world. The other side against the sky, through the concentric circles of the cupola. A sword that becomes the axis of the universe, round which all seems rotate, as the stars do round the Polar star. Where, as the men of the Middle Age knew very well, is situated the throne of God.

San Galgano is situated South to Siena, near Chiusdino.