A little Jerusalem arises among the gentle hills surrounding Montaione in Tuscany. Within its bounds one can find all those places mentioned in the gospels relating to Jesus’ last days on the Earth. There is Mount Calvary, Golgotha the Place of the Skull, the house of Caiphas, the palace of Herod and even Christ’s sepulchre.
San Vivaldo, a hermit who spent much of his life living in a hollow chestnut tree, thought up the idea of transforming a spot in Tuscany into a miniature Holy Land. It was a time when, despite the militant efforts of the Crusades, the Turkish Muslims had rendered Palestine out of bounds for Christian pilgrims. What else could be done in a time before Zeffirelli-type epic films or computer generated virtual reality to recreate the ambience of those events so dear to so many people using the best means available at the time?
For the construction of the chapels, a friar, Fra Tommaso da Firenze relied on his experience gained from countless trips to the Holy Land and on interactions with Brother Bernardino Caimi, who in those years was designing a Holy Mountain at Varallo in Piedmont.
A little hill brought to mind Mount Calvary. Other features reflected topographical similarities with the sanctuaries existing in Jerusalem at the beginning of the 16th century.
It was for this reason and through the Papal bulls that gave prestige and religious merit to a pilgrimage to a parallel universe reflecting the original Holy Land that
starting from the fifteenth century chapels were built each one containing a scene from those momentous last days of the Saviour.
The chapels house valuable terracottas of the Della Robbia tradition which illustrate the last period of Jesus’ life. They had the function of a ‘ Biblia puperum’, that is to represent the Bible and make it understandable, even empathetically, to the largely illiterate people of those times.
We visited the chapels yesterday in a little group of five persons with a sweet Italian whippet under the guidance of a most erudite young man who pointed out things to us in the chapels’ dramatic depictions which we had never suspected.
For instance the man on the far right riding a palfrey is none other than Joseph of Arimathea who brought Christ to England and Glastonbury and supplied His sepulchre after the crucifixion.
The vividness of the depictions struck us. We felt that we were really part of the dramatic scenes: mingling with the crowds, joining the other disciples at the Last Supper’s table and witnessing those final harrowing moments on the Via Crucis.
The artistry of the terracotta figures reached heights which fully proclaimed the influence of a Della Robbia workshop. I remained amazed that these testimonies of a pre-digital age still had so much power in them with their expressive energy and vivid colours.
So even if so many of us today, sadly like those times which gave rise to this rural artistic installation, feel discouraged to visit Jerusalem with the current troubles we can still partake of the vision of San Vivaldo and visit a ‘little Jerusalem’ set deep withn the wooded Tuscan hills.
I remember having visited San Vivaldo before. Searching through my photos I came across these recording a cycle trip there from Florence in 1986. We were shown around by a lone friar who someone has identified as Fra Antonio. We were young then and married for less than ten years. Hopes sprang eternal then: some realised, others, like wanting to have children, dashed to the ground. It was lovely, therefore, to say that we have returned. almost forty years later to a loved spot of our youth.
