Close to home, on the way up to Gombereto, there is a ruined chapel at Refubbri (the name of the nearby stream). It’s the Oratory of the Visitation of The Virgin Mary to Saint Elizabeth, and is mentioned in a famous poem by Robert Browning (‘By the Fireside”: for full text see
https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/by-the-fire-side/
Sadly, the chapel is fast succumbing to creepers and (now that its roof has largely gone) to the elements. (For more information and photographs on this sad situation do visit my special web site at http://refubbri.tripod.com/engstart.htm).
The chapel is one of Gombereto’s three little churches (or chiesine) in its religious purlieus: San Giuseppe, standing outside the southern entrance to the village, Santa Maria dei Dolori, at the northern end, and Refubbri’s chiesina Della Visitazione
As I returned from my shopping yesterday I stopped to look at this melancholic chapel. Recently the woodland area around it has been cleared and the chapel is clearly visible once more. It was almost totally covered by foliage. Although the roof has long since collapsed the inner arch supporting it was still intact, for how long goodness knows. The little bridge connecting it to the road was still seemingly solid but, again, I wondered for how long – I wasn’t quite sure if the bridge was safe to cross.
And yonder, at foot of the fronting ridge
That takes the turn to a range beyond,
Is the chapel reached by the one-arched bridge
Where the water is stopped in a stagnant pond
Danced over by the midge.
(From ‘By the Fireside’, Robert Browning)
I explored the area round it and realised that the chapel had a semi-circular apse, perhaps pointing to more ancient origins as this feature is associated with Romanesque churches. Sandra also noted this date stone which has been uncovered beneath the ivy. Sixteen hundred, certainly.
The corner quoins are particularly well finished.
And the path leading up from the chapel certainly reflects this stanza in Browning’s poem with its precipitous foliage-hidden drop.
The path leads to a crag’s sheer edge with them;
Youth, flowery all the way, there stops—
Not they; age threatens and they contemn,
Till they reach the gulf wherein youth drops,
One inch from life’s safe hem!
There was talk at one time of restoring the chapel at Refubbri and use it for non RC Christian celebrations (especially weddings) but, to date, nothing has come of this. While there are many worthy causes to donate money to and many more distinguished buildings needing help I remain dejected at the thought that, for the thirteen-plus years that I have lived here, the little woodland chapel of Refubbri has no-one to love it and help it live again in some form whether that be even a hiker’s shelter from the rain.