San Giorgio Alle Rose

The small Church of San Giorgio has been known by different names through the centuries: “alleroso” was later transformed to “alle rose”. It was also known as “allo spadaio”, from the name of a nearby farmhouse, possibly in memory of a battle between the Sienese and the Florentines; and finaliy “a strada”, because of its location along the ancient Roman road. According to a document dated 1184, the church was also a pilgrims’ hospital, a fact supported by the lunette with a bas-relief cross above one of the two side doors, now partially bricked in. It is a plain building with a single nave made of small aligned rectangular blocks of alberese stone. The facade, probably the apse in earlier times, had originally only a single narrow window. The circular window and the brick door were added later, possibly in the 13th century.

San Silvestro all’Argenna

A little further on from San Giorgio there is a dirt road to the left dipping down then climbing towards San Silvestro, over the hill that overlooks the valley of one of the two branches of the Argenna stream. At the top, after the farmhouse, lie the evocative ruins of the Church of San Silvestro, destroyed during the Second World War. Documents describe the church as already impoverished in 1276. Conditions did not improve during the course of the centuries. In the 19th century it became the private chapel of the Michelozzi family. We can deduce from the remains of its outer walls, built in alberese stone, that San Silvestro was a
simple Romanesque church with a single nave, covered by a gabled roof. Near the church are some unusual wide circular pits. Their hilltop position suggests the possibility that they are Etruscan tombs, similar to those of the nearby necropolis of Poggino. What’s certain, however, is that the place-name Argenna, found in various locations and in different forms throughout Chianti, derives from the Etruscan name Arcnal, which became the Latin Arcinius or Arginius.

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